NACoand the National League of Cities (NLC), will serve as co-directors of a grant that was recently awarded to the Local Collaboration for Children and Youth by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The grant is targeted to assist the collaboration develop a multifaceted action agenda to foster a comprehensive, unified and integrated approach to meeting the needs of children and youth both at the national level and in communities across the United States.
The Local Collaboration for Children and Youth was established to assist local governance organizations mobilize communities for children. In addition to NACo and NLC, the other members of the local collaboration include the American Association of School Administrators, International City and County Management Association, National School Boards Association, and U.S. Conference of Mayors.
The goals of the two-year grant from the Casey Foundation are to raise public awareness of the needs of children and youth and to increase public knowledge of and support for developing comprehensive, collaborative community efforts to address those needs. Additionally, the grant project aims to help communities implement or replicate successful community collaborative partnerships for children.
To achieve these goals, the Local Collaboration for Children and Youth will:
produce a series of articles for national and state association publications and develop and coordinate the placement of opinion pieces in national, state and local publications on integrated, collaborative community-based approaches for children and youth
produce and disseminate a video or public service announcement on the need to develop collaborative community approaches to meet the needs of children and youth
conduct a national awards program to identify and highlight examples of comprehensive, collaborative community responses to the needs of children and families, and
produce a guidebook, based on information received through the awards program, that will highlight and encourage the replication of successful comprehensive community collaborative partnerships that work.
(For more information on this project, please contact, Sandy Markwood, human services programs director, NACo, 440 First St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001, phone: 202/942-4235, fax: 202/737-0480.)
(County Services News was written by Sandy Markwood, human services programs director.)