TheConnector

TheCONNECTOR is Youth Community Connections’ (YCC) communication tool for sharing updates and for seeking action from its partners. TheCONNECTOR contains the following highlights:

RECENT NEWS AND EVENTS
Minnesota Loses Champion for Youth
Join Us for the Rally for Youth Day at the State Capitol
Summer Learning Institute Proposals
Join YCC on Facebook and Twitter!
Host an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow
Survey on the Types of Afterschool Tools Available for Cities and Providers

NEW RESEARCH AND RESOURCES
Youth Work Institute
Harvard Family Research Project Updates
Integrating Developmental Assets and Ready by 21
Job and Life Readiness through Education

POLICY AND ADVOCACY
YCC Legislative Priorities
YCC Policy and Advocacy Committee to Meet February 11, 2011
Governor's Education Plan
Educate Your Elected Officials About the Benefits of Afterschool and Summer Learning Opportunities 

FUTURE EVENTS
Youth Work Institute Learning Opportunities
Minnesota Student Survey Data
Coalition for Community Schools Future Events

Minnesota Loses Champion for Youth
Youth Community Connections is sad to share the news that our colleague, Ann Lochner, passed away this week.  Ann was a true champion for children and youth.  Her leadership on the Commission on Out-of-School Time and her contributions to policy and research in the field were essential to our work. She will be missed by many. 

Lochner, Ann Marie of Edina, passed away on February 7, 2011 at the age of 62. Preceded in death by her parents, Survived by her husband, Dr. Richard Lochner; son, Peter Lochner; daughter, Abby (Jason) Bettini; daughter, Sam Lochner; sister, Sue Quinlan. Ann dedicated her life to Child Advocacy with a big heart. Mass of Christian Burial 11:00 AM Saturday at Christ the King Catholic Church, 5029 Zenith Ave S., with visitation one and one-half hours prior to Mass at Church only. Interment Lakewood Cemetery.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/startribune/obituary.aspx?n=ann-marie-lochner&pid=148493620

Join Us for the Rally for Youth Day at the State Capitol
Youth Community Connections, a proud sponsor of the Rally for Youth Day, invites you to join us at the Capitol on Thursday, March 3, 2011.  The Rally for Youth is scheduled from 12:00-1:00 PM in the Rotunda of the State Capitol.  

Join youth from across the State of Minnesota as they share their voices with elected officials.  Youth will highlight the importance of out-of-school time opportunities, mentoring, intervention, workforce readiness, preventing juvenile crime and homelessness.  

For more information, click here. If you have questions or need more information, please contact Matt Steele at 612-627-0157 or matt@youthcommunityconnections.org.

Summer Learning Institute Proposals
The U.S. Department of Education is seeking proposals for presentations for the 2011 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) Summer Institute. This years’ theme is “A Network of Partners Supporting Increased Learning in 21st CCLC Programs”. Selected presenters will provide workshops that demonstrate promising practices, provide technical assistance to attendees, present an exchange of ideas, and deliver new information on research-based strategies and models.

Proposals will be accepted until Friday, February 18, 2011. If you are interested in being a presenter at the 2011 21st CCLC Summer Institute, please go to http://www.seiservices.com/21stcentury/CFP2011.aspx to review the solicitation and submit a proposal. 

The 2011 21st CCLC Summer Institute will be held in National Harbor, MD from Monday, July 25, through Wednesday, July27, 2011. Online registration for the 2011 Summer Institute will be available in early March 2011 at http://www.seiservices.com/21stcentury.

Join YCC on Facebook and Twitter! 
Check out YCC’s new Facebook and Twitter pages! You will find up to date news alerts regarding out-of-school time in Minnesota and learn about YCC events. Don’t forget to tell your friends and colleagues to check us out! Click here to join Facebook and click here to join Twitter!  

Host an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow
The Minnesota Alliance With Youth is very pleased to invite schools, community organizations, government agencies, and others to submit a proposal to host AmeriCorps Promise Fellows.  In 2011-2012, the Alliance is planning to significantly expand its number of AmeriCorps members across the state.  In order to ensure all youth achieve success in school, work, and life, the Alliance focuses on four strategies: 1) strengthening youth success in school and learning, 2) increasing youth contribution through service & leadership opportunities, 3) developing and magnifying youth voice, and 4) promoting collaboration and innovation.   

To apply to become a Host Site, organizations must complete an application as outlined in the Request for Proposals (available online at www.mnyouth.net).   Applications are due Friday, March 4, 2011.  

If you have any questions regarding the Promise Fellow program, please contact Melissa Burwell at mburwell@mnyouth.net or 651-528-8561.

Survey on the Types of Afterschool Tools Available for Cities and Providers
The National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education, and Families is partnering with The Wallace Foundation to support a survey to identify the types of tools and resources that cities and afterschool providers would find most useful to expand their afterschool, summer, and expanded learning efforts. The survey will be most helpful to communities as they continue to expand their afterschool, summer, and out-of-school time (OST) efforts.  
Your responses will remain strictly confidential, and the survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete.  Please click here to access the survey. 

NEW RESEARCH AND RESOURCES

Check out some of the latest research on after school, youth engagement and quality improvement on YCC’s website under latest research.

Youth Work Institute 
Check out this site for a variety of training opportunities and best practices offered through the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development.  Visit this site for more information.

Harvard Family Research Project Updates
Harvard Family Research Project is pleased to share with you a new issue in their Research Updates series and an update about their out-of-school time program research and evaluation database.  Increasing interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has become part of education reform efforts in recent years. OST programs that focus on girls' involvement in STEM can play an essential role in improving female representation in these traditionally male-dominated fields. However, barriers to quality implementation and outcome-based evaluation present challenges for STEM programs serving girls. This Research Update highlights findings from the evaluations and research studies in our OST Database that focus on STEM programs for girls. In addition, the Research Project added four new profiles of recent STEM OST evaluations to our database: Girls Creating Games, Girls Incorporated's Thinking SMART, Mixing in Math, and Project Exploration. For more on the STEM research, click here.  For information regarding the database updates, click here.

Integrating Developmental Assets and Ready by 21
The Forum for Youth Investment and Search Institute are working to align Ready by 21 with the 40 Assets Approach.  Last month, Search Institute, the Forum for Youth Investment and New York community leaders teamed up to present a webinar on how to effectively integrate the two approaches to improving the odds for youth. More than 80 participants from across the country explored the common elements of the Ready by 21 strategies and the Developmental Asset approach by learning more about the conceptual frameworks, research, and common goals of each. 

Joan Bickweat, a veteran coalition builder with Healthy Communities · Healthy Youth in Monroe County, N.Y., shared her experiences in integrating and leveraging both the "top down" and "bottom up" approaches to enhance community change. The webinar closed with an overview of the range of tools available through the Developmental Assets and Ready by 21 that can help expand, deepen and sustain community collaboration efforts.

Job and Life Readiness through Education
Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century argues that our national strategy for education and youth development has been too narrowly focused on an academic, classroom-based approaches.  Pathways to Prosperity contends that in order to regain the educational leadership we held for more than a century, the United States must build a more comprehensive network of pathways to serve youth in high school and beyond. For more information, click here.

POLICY AND ADVOCACY UPDATES

YCC Legislative Priorities
With the start of the 2011 Legislative session, YCC has decided to focus its efforts around the following priorities to maintain quality out-of-school time programming in Minnesota:

Maintain current state funds for community learning opportunities in the out-of-school time (e.g. after school, youth development, and summer programs) and the systems and infrastructure that support these opportunities.

Public funding for youth programming in the out-of-school time is essential to ensuring youth have a broad array of positive opportunities to learn, grow, lead and contribute.
  

Educate legislators and local policy makers about the policy framework Supporting Youth Success: The Promise of Expanded Learning Opportunities and its recommendations.

The Supporting Youth Success policy framework calls for the creation of comprehensive learning systems in communities across the state.  The framework supports learning during the non-school hours through after school, youth development and summer program as a critical strategy for helping prepare youth for college, work and life.

Focus on informing the education community about Supporting Youth Success policy recommendation to expand the definition of success to include learning that takes place in the classroom as well as learning that takes place in the community through the P-20 council. 

The P-20 Council can assist in the development and adoption of a broader definition of success for Minnesota’s youth, which is designed to help youth prepare for college work and life by including indicators of progress related to formal education as well as non-formal learning that takes place in after school, youth development and summer programs.

For more information regarding YCC’s legislative agenda contact Laura LaCroix-Dalluhn at laura@youthcommunityconnections.org or 612-627-0161. 

YCC Policy and Advocacy Committee to Meet February 11, 2011
Youth Community Connections’ Policy and Advocacy Committee will meet on Friday, February 11, 2011 from 9:00 - 11:00 a.m. at the Oxford Community Center in St. Paul.  Join us as we share the latest legislative news impacting youth programming, share updates about the Youth Rally Day at the Capitol, and hear from partners about their own policy initiatives during the 2011 legislative session.    

To RSVP please contact Matt Steele at matt@youthcommunityconnections.org or 612-627-0157. 

Governor’s Education Plan
On February 4th, the Governor outlined in detail his plan to help improve the current status of Minnesota's education system.  During the outlining, Governor Dayton mentioned that he plans to reinstate the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet.  For more information regarding Governor Dayton’s Education plan and the Children’s Cabinet, click here.

Educate Your Elected Officials About the Benefits of Afterschool and Summer Learning Opportunities 
YCC encourages you to get involved in your community to help raise awareness about the value and benefits of high-quality afterschool, summer and community learning opportunities.  It is important to contact your elected officials to introduce yourself as someone who either lives or works within the district that has knowledge about issues related to youth and afterschool, summer and community learning opportunities. YCC has prepared a policy brief outlining the benefits of afterschool and summer learning opportunities and we encourage you to use this when talking to elected officials.  You can find your congressional representatives here.  

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FUTURE EVENTS

YWI LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The University of Minnesota Extension’s Center for Youth Development’s Youth Works Institute is hosting a number of seminars.  Training opportunities include Leadership Matters, targeting program leaders and directors, Youth Engagement Matters and Culturally Responsive Youth Work Matters.

Click here for more information!

Minnesota Student Survey Data
The Minnesota Department of Education in collaboration with the Minnesota Institute of Public Health (MIPH) will be sponsoring several training opportunities throughout the state focusing on the results of the Minnesota Student Survey.  These presentations will not only include the most recent findings, but also how to best learn from your local results and ways to present your local data.  Pre-Registration is required.

For more information and registration, go to the Minnesota Prevention Resource Center's website (www.emprc.org) or contact Lynne Gosselin at (763) 427-5310 ext. 155. 

All training sessions run from 8:30 a.m. - noon. Check for the training nearest you!

Coalition for Community Schools Future Events
The Coalition for Community Schools is holding two upcoming events regarding youth development. 

• On February, 17th at 2:00 PM, the Coalition will facilitate a webinar about the Federal Budget outlook for education.
• On February 24th, at 12:00 PM, the coalition will host a webinar on ways in which youth are engaged as partners with adults in Beacons to improve themselves, programs and communities. 

For more details about the webinars, click here. 

Youth Community Connections
200 Oak Street SE, Suite 270B ~ Minneapolis, MN 55455
PH: 612.627.0160
WEB: www.youthcommunityconnections.org