Allentown Youth Coalition June 13‏

We hope everyone is enjoying our spring weather as we slowly roll into summer.   It is always an exciting time of year as school begins to slow down and summer vacations arrive.  It is also a busy time of year for most youth support programs; getting the message out, getting opportunities to youth for productive participation in various activities and supporting healthy physical and mental growth.  To that end please bring any information to our next meeting about your summer programming to share with all our youth program constituents.

Our next meeting will be Thursday JUNE 13 at 11 AM

Thank you to all those who were able to attend our last meeting on May 9:

Impact Project / School Justice Panel

Crime Victims Council

The Program

Community Commitment Inc.

Prolifick Radio

Penn State Extension

Community in Schools of the Lehigh Valley

Parent Advocate

St John’s Lutheran Church

Lehigh County

Juvenile Probation

Allentown City Hall

United Way

Presentations for our May 9 meeting:

Community That Cares

We had a very productive meeting on May 9.   Denise Continenza started our round table discussion with insight about “Community That Cares” (CTC).   Denise thoroughly explained and offered handouts and in conjunction please permit this synopsis; CTC is a delinquency and violence prevention planning model that helps the community to mobilize, identify risk and preventive factors and develop a comprehensive prevention plan.  It is a deep look into what youth want and need to be better young adults and productive members of society.  It begins with an entire community working together with trained leadership to facilitate the programs’ step by step application – this is where AYC can play a part.   An important step is collecting data from the source; youth.  The Allentown School District is a major factor in this step with the Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS) administered to 6^th, 7^th 10^th and 12^th grades.  Through this information and all the supportive parties working together with focused resources at hand the program is initiated on multiple levels but with some very primary steps in place. 

This presentation was followed by some very good questions about outreach, funding, and implementation.  Paulette expressed concern for funding and what happens when the grant runs out – which has been the case in many other programs through the years.  Denise explained that an aspect of the organization is a committee whose focus is sustainability – it is a key component.  The bottom line is that it is moving forward.  Joyce pointed out our community needs to hear from youth – a leadership council of youth per say.  Alfonso Todd offered his radio and internet connection to youth and getting a message out (link below).  He also commented on getting information from those youth are not in the school district and still need to be heard. 

Some key topics were that youth of Allentown need consistency in approach, the fight is getting youth to remain in school and to begin to turn around the dropout rate, and finally youth need a forum.  

A joint effort between AYC and the CTC program needs to be considered, coordinated and applied to a timeline in the near future.

IMPACT Project