Minneapolis Awarded
Child Friendly City Designation
Minneapolis adopted UNICEF USA's Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) in February 2020. After 4-years of work, Minneapolis become only the second city in the country to become a UNICEF USA child friendly city. We held a gathering in downtown Minneapolis and were joined by Mayor Jacob Frey, former Commissioner of Health, Gretchen Musicant; current Commissioner of Health, Damon Chaplin; Minneapolis Public Schools board member, Kim Ellison; UNICEF USA President & CEO, Michael Nyenhuis; and many guests. We are grateful to everyone who contributed to the CFCI effort. Read more about the event at the full page HERE.
"No Decision About Us, Without Us" — we try to support and live by the Minneapolis Youth Congress' motto every day. As usual, MYC has done incredible work over the last year and we wish the 2023-24 cohort a wonderful summer break. Every year we have a senior send off celebration with lots of cake. We thank our seniors for the amazing work and for making Minneapolis a better city of all youth!
The Minnesota Department of Human Services promoted Help Me Connect and our Early Childhood Director, Deby, was a part of the promotional video. As stated in the video, Deby can help you find resources and services via Help Me Connect if finding things on your own becomes too difficult. Learn more about Help Me Connect by watching the video. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions.
Every year support systems and numbers change. It's sometimes difficult to stay on top of these changes during our busy lives. Here is a quick "2024 Family Factsheet" to help guide you through resources, programs, and policy changes.
The Minneapolis Health Department have created a video to gently remind people to wash their hands. We love the video because it features young people! Protect yourself from getting sick, but also your parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and more! Check out the super cute video and share it with your network!
Do you have an open job that you want to fill with the best possible candidate? One of the roles of the Minneapolis Afterschool Network is to ensure the youth work field of Minneapolis remains healthy by promoting professional development opportunities and by making sure we're all aware of important open youth work positions. We're here to help spread news about your open positions! We've now made it easier than ever with a short form that will guide you through the essential information we need. Now there is no need to contact us to have a back-and-forth! Find our new form HERE and we'll have your information in our next newsletter and social media soon. Thank you!
Every year, we swear in a new cohort of Minneapolis Youth Congress (MYC) members. As we continue to recover from the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, we're extremely excited for the 2023-24 cohort of MYC. We kicked things off in style inside City Hall! Thanks to everyone who attended and we're looking forward to what MYC accomplishes over the next year!
The Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) has many threads of work — emergency management & preparedness planning; youth voice in decision making; community safety; and child rights education & awareness. To make our Local Action Plan and CFCI work, we need to bring the entire community together. Therefore, the CFCI-Minneapolis team hosts periodic gatherings so we can network, coordinate, share resources, and gain insight. Our latest event in November was a great success and we thank everyone that attended. 2024 will be a big year for CFCI!