Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth & Families

Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth & Families

Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth & Families

August 24, 2016

Notes:

Attendance: John Andelin, Bart Devon, Dave Carlson, Sheila Fleischhacker, Reid Goldstein, Molly Gordon, Alicia Guajardo, Judy Hadden, Marion Harmon, Rachel Harlan, Linda Henderson, Cheryl Johnson, Laura Newton, Linh Nghe, Susan Noack, Anne O’Brien, Sam Stebbins, Lisa Stengle, Rick Strobach, Devanshi Patel, Jessica Woody. Staff: Kim Durand, Siobhan Grayson, Rebecca Hjelm, Michael Swisher, Mary Wulf.

Potluck Dinner:

The first portion of our meeting was dedicated to enjoying a meal together.

LindenResources Fathers Forward program:

Linden is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing employment opportunities to underserved populations and has been in existence since 1959. We have recently been awarded has recently been awarded a large grant (HMRF-Healthy Marriages and Responsible Fatherhood Grant) from the Health and Human Services Department geared towards helping establish, sustain, and empower families of low income homes. This new program, coined Father’s Forward, provides various social services for fathers and families that qualify. While you may not provide services directly to individuals within the community we feel you may know or be connected to agencies and/or organizations that would benefit from a program such as this. Below is a detailed description of Fathers Forward for you and your colleagues’ reference.

Fathers Forward Mission:

A joint, federally funded, grant program offering services with Granato Counseling Services to provide employment placement and training as well as responsible fatherhood education to low-income fathers to foster parental and interpersonal relationships while improving economic stability to better provide for their families.

Services Fathers Forward provides:

  • 6 weeks of FIT Fatherhood Workshops
  • Career Development Plans
  • One-on-one Career Coaching
  • GED/Vocational Program referrals
  • Job Readiness Training and Job Development
  • Resume/Cover Letter Review and Development
  • Job Fair and Immediate Hire Announcements
  • Digital Literacy Referrals (MS Office Suite training, etc.)
  • Job Search Skills
  • Employer Connections
  • Interview Techniques/Dress for Success/Local Clothing Closets
  • Career Assessments: What is the best career for YOU?

To be eligible:

  • Any father who is 200% at or below the federal guidelines. (temporary unemployment qualifies)
  • The child must be 24 years old or younger
  • Expecting Fathers & Youth Fathers Qualify

See attached flyers. Agency and self-referrals can be made by going to the link below:

Succession Plan & Leadership for 2017

Judy Hadden thanked Devanshi for her work as chair for the past two years, recognizing that she works day and night and never quits. Devanshi has 20+ youth that she works with as a lawyer on top of all of the work she has done for APCYF. Judy also recognized the work of the vice-chair, Dave Carlson, who has been in that support role for 4 years!

Moving forward, we have two long-time members who will serve as co-chairs in 2017: Linda Henderson and Anne Vor der Bruegge will take on this leadership role, with Anne O’Brien stepping in as Vice-Chair. Anne will then take on the Chair role in 2018, and a current member of APCYF will need to take on the vice-chair role and so on.

The appointments will be made official in January.

Community Conversation Planning

Working with a committee that includes John Andelin, Judy Hadden, Mary Ann Moran, Anne O’Brien, Brenda Wilks, Michael Swisher, Siobhan Grayson and Kim Durand, we have a working outline of a Community Conversation that will focus on Race.

Some suggestions and ideas that have been discussed:

Have an event to start the conversation, but also have 3-4 additional meetings set-up for anyone who wants to continue the conversations.

Be sure to include youth – make the event intergenerational (middle school and up).

Make sure the space is big enough, yet comfortable enough for intimate conversation.

Have an opening exercise that helps put people at ease with each other.

Invite people to share their stories.

Have enough time for plenty of discussion.

A mix of exercises, storytelling and conversations.

Create a page on the website that will have links and information for further conversation/exploration.

Goals:

  • Connect people to others who are talking about this
  • Provide guidance for how to talk with kids about this
  • Begin to understand (or at least become aware of) white privilege

We will be continuing to meet and several others will be joining the conversation as we move forward: Devanshi Patel, Susan Noack, Marty Swaim, Gladis Bourdouane, Alicia Cackley and Linh Nghe. If you are interested, please let Kim know.

Surveys and Data Committee

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey will be administered in spring, 2017. The survey will be given to grades 6, 8 and 10 on-line, and 12 through paper unless on-line access is available. The survey has also been translated into Spanish.

Rebecca Hjelm also presented some information around the big picture and future of our data collection in general. Search Institute (who has provided us with the Assets Surveys in the past), is no longer providing the 6th grade survey, so we are taking this opportunity to look at other survey instruments. Working closely with APS staff Lisa Stengle and Regina Van Horne, we are looking at consolidating surveys to combine efforts to align with the Whole Child framework as well as addressing the Developmental Asset Framework and measuring the strengths that our youth have in- and out-side of school.

A group will convene in October to move this forward with the goal of creating this survey for use in 2018.

Kim stressed that although we will not be administering the Developmental Assets Surveys from Search Institute, we will continue to support the Developmental Asset Framework and will continue to focus on the strengths of our youth and our community.

There is a lot of excitement and energy around these shifts. If you are interested in joining this committee, contact Rebecca Hjelm .

Assets Committee and the Parent Chats

Dave Carlson and Michael Swisher provided some information about the Parent Chats. They provided the following talking points regarding Parent Chats:

The Partnership believes that, when parents share wisdom with one another, we all become better parents.That is why we are inviting parents to host and facilitate Parent Chats.

The goal of the chats are so parents can:

  • CONNECT with other parents
  • SHARE what has worked for them, what they struggle with
  • BUILD a community of support

APCYF provides a kit that includes suggested format, discussion ideas, and tips, but YOU give it your personal touch.

How do Parent Chats work?

Get together with some parents. Invite some friends who are parents to join you in conversation. Start small, maybe the parents of the best friends of your child(ren). Keep in mind that ‘parents’ come in many forms (grandparents, older siblings, mentors, aunts and uncles).

Have intentional conversations about parenting. Intentional, deliberate conversations give us the chance to learn from one another and grow as parents.

Tell us what you talked about. What were some main topics that came up? What are some of the things that parents wish they knew more about? We can provide materials and information for questions or concerns that arise. Also, by knowing more about what parents are facing, we can better support everyone in our community.

What can you do?

Talk to friends and your networks about them

Share with community leaders

Sign up and organize chats in your circles

Dave emphasized that the success of this relies on each of us to help raise awareness. Share this information with others; give it to parents who have rising 6 or 9th graders; send to your networks. We hope to create a network of parents to push out information too and collect information from.

Link to page:

Teen Network Board (TNB)

  • Siobhan Grayson reported that the TNB has 45, but expect more as the school year starts. Teens were at the County Fair and other outreach events sharing information with their peers. If you know any teens or youth serving organizations that might be interested, please let Siobhan know.
  • Teens have been invited to participate in the Virginia Statewide Neighborhood Conference. This is a new partnership with Community Housing and Planning Depts. TNB members will introduce the key note for the conference they are holding in Arlington in late September.
  • TNB members attended the Anti-Drug Coalition Conference in Las Vegas and participated with a new pilot project focused on Medication Safety, targeting 5 7 6th graders. The training will be for teens, by teens. The TNB was awarded a grant of $1,000.00 for their participation in this pilot.
  • The TNB Kick-Off event will be held on August 31st from 4:00 – 6:00 at Central Library.

Committees!

During this meeting, there was considerable excitement about the work being done in committees. Here is a rundown of our committees:

Early Childhood Committee

Developmental Asset Committee

Data Committee

Communications Committee

Healthy Child Action Team (HCAT)

Mental Wellness Roundtable

Care for a Change

READY Coalition

Out-of-School Time Council

Teen Network Board

All of our committees and additional information can be found on our website:

Upcoming Events and Meetings:

Aug 31 4:00 – 6:00 Teen Network Board Kick-Off at Central Library

Aug 31 5:30 – 7:00 Healthy Child Action Team (HCAT), Sequoia Auditorium

Sep 8 9:30 Assets Committee, Sequoia Room A

Sept 9 11:00 Data Committee Meeting, Sequoia Room A

Sep 17 Clarendon Day & Nauck Day!

Sep 20 6:30 – 8:30 TNB Meeting, Central Library

Sep 23 6:00 – 9:00 We Are All Arlington! Wakefield High School

Sep 27 4:30 Mental Wellness Roundtable, Sequoia Room A

Sep 28 6:00 – 8:00 APCYF Meeting

SAVE THE DATE: October 15 – OST Developmental Asset Conference (See attached postcard) at Kenmore Middle School. Registration opens on September 12, 2016.

Thank you all – have a wonderful beginning of September. I look forward to catching up with you all when I return.

Kim Durand, APCYF Coordinator

Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth & Families

Department of Human Services

Child & Family Services Division

703-228-1667 |

Strengthen, Protect, Empower