Nothing can be counted as progress in a community until children and youth are well cared for and show healthy development and steady and sustained progress in learning. The needs of children and youth in the inner city communities are great, yet these communities continue to receive very little attention in most places. Even in those urban areas where important revitalization initiatives have been implemented, divestment of all kinds – economic, professional and social – is the pattern, and the division between agencies, professional societies and bureaucracies is omnipresent.
Human development and education should be key considerations in sustainable economic and community development efforts in our nation’s urban communities.
Leadership in developing an overall positive “vision” of what can and should be done for children and youth in urban America is critical. We offer a synopsis of the proceedings of a national conference by invitation that focuses on such a vision. The diverse conference participants offered insights into what leads to healthy learning and development for children and youth and highlighted efforts to revitalize our nation’s inner cities. The speakers expressed both their shared needs and their prospects for the future amidst their multiple perspectives.
The speakers communicated a strong need for deep and true collaboration at all levels, especially collaboration in direct work with children and families. Conference participants noted that the most important decisions in revitalization work must be made at the neighborhood level and that strategies must be replicated through careful consideration of the developments that are most sensitive to each unique site. However, accountability and technical assistance plans need to be coordinated at higher or more general levels. The need for technical assistance is especially noted in areas such as leadership, achieving collaboration, program evaluation, and accountability. Mutual aid strategies forge a collaborative process that can result in significant advancements at local sites and subsequent expansion efforts. Successful work at a given site should lead to the use of staff as staff consultants at other sites, using all possible methods of communication: print, electronic, face-to-face meetings, and sustained technical assistance.
The speakers called for the resources of urban universities to be incorporated into community revitalization work through (a) the creation of new interdisciplinary units in the academy that are aligned with the wide range of activities that constitute the revitalization efforts of community; (b) the alteration of perspectives and roles of university personnel; and (c) renewed commitments for researchers to enter inner-city neighborhoods as true community partners. The revised procedures for rewarding university staff for community service were deemed essential.
Speakers also noted that collaboration should extend to professional societies as well, where leadership and coordination between associations are necessary to examine the needs of children in inner-city communities and design and implement effective programs.
Finally, implicit in the idea of local decision-making is that funding offered by federal and state agencies should be as open and flexible as possible, emphasizing field-initiated orientation rather than strictly categorical and top-down funding streams. down.
Speakers noted that while community revitalization efforts are beginning to generate engagement and activities in many places, most of this increased activity suffers from a lack of clarity regarding shared goals, entry points, and goals. connections with other agencies and associations. Finding practical ways to come together to launch coordinated services has raised significant challenges for those involved in efforts to improve the living circumstances of children and youth living in the city center. A leadership mechanism for networking is required to advance a broad-based initiative to revitalize our nation’s inner-city communities and foster the development and learning of urban children and youth. Speakers’ recommended “starter” next-step tasks include the following examples:
– Provoke the consolidation of resources in all government departments in support of new projects.
– Help create visibility for community revitalization projects and ensure the credibility and growth of projects by selecting the highest quality resources and promoting public awareness of good work. Contacts with the media are important as a way to foster public understanding and support.
– Meet with university leaders and representatives of professional associations to give the “starting signal” for the formation of interdisciplinary teams of researchers and field professionals who join the community leadership to make widely coordinated efforts to address children’s situations and young people in the economic sphere. distressed urban communities.
– Lead the way among federal departments in building a vast pool of research funds and documents that will be available only for interdisciplinary design projects conducted in collaboration with individuals and agencies in urban America.
– Challenge all federal departments and all state governments to duplicate and redouble the resources dedicated to improving the living and learning situation of urban children and youth.
While there are significant challenges and issues of both will and skills as we attempt to make urgent repairs to the lives and learning of inner-city children, there are significant signs of readiness to respond if we can only find ways to gather to all. stakeholders at the starting line, organize the necessary resources and signal that the journey is beginning.