Forum Flash: June 4, 2008
The Dropout Summit Planning Guide, Ready by 21 Presentations and more!
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June 4, 2008
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Dear Forum Flash Reader,
The Forum has been busy working to bring supports and resources to communities and leaders across the country. Scroll down to find out what we've been up to lately with a few of our national partners, including United Way of America, American Association of School Administrators and the America's Promise Alliance. Also read Karen Pittman's latest Youth Today column to learn more about why this work is so important and check out the completed Dropout Prevention Summit Guide.
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Precision Engineering
 "Passion and precision are sometimes seen as opposites. The call for passion and precision is a call for us to blend them," writes Karen Pittman in her latest Youth Today column. "Think head/heart. Capacity/motivation. Our actions improve when they are informed by both.... We must develop community-level dashboards whose clear measurements compel community leaders to think differently, so that together they can act differently." Read the full column.
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Dropout Prevention Summit Planning Guide
 The America's Promise Alliance is supporting 50 state and at least 50 city Dropout Prevention Summits to be held by 2010. The purposes of the Dropout Prevention Summits are many, but the primary intention is to increase public awareness of the nation's dropout and college-readiness crisis. Together with our Ready by 21 national partners, the Forum is providing this guide to cities and states who will be hosting summits over the next two years. This guide asks and answers three questions:
- Why focus on high school graduation?
- Why focus on summits?
- Why create a specific action plan to reduce the dropout rate?
Read the Summit Planning Guide.
As part of the Forum's commitment to support America's Promise Alliance Dropout Prevention Summits and Quality Counts sites, the Forum, along with Iowa Collaboration for Youth Development, co-sponsored Governor Culver's Dropout Prevention Summit aimed at creating urgency and developing action plans to respond to the dropout crisis of minority youth in 15 Iowa communities. View Karen's PowerPoint.
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VIDEO: Quality Counts Webinar "Program Quality and Youth Outcomes"
 This webinar, which targeted sites participating in the Ready by 21 Quality Counts initiative, focuses on the relationship between program quality and youth outcomes. Presentations by Karen Finn, Karen Pittman and Charles Smith shed light on how tracking population-level results and indicators at the community level relates to performance assessment at the program level. Tips for how to talk with funders and other stakeholders about the relationship between youth program quality and program outcomes are provided. View the webinar. |
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| Conferences & Convenings
 Aligning Illinois DHS and Ready by 21 Frameworks
Forum staff members Merita Irby and Karen Finn traveled to Chicago and Springfield, Illinois, where they facilitated trainings with leaders from the Illinois Department of Human Services' Division of Community Health and Prevention. Coordinated by Prevention First, one of the Forum's new technical assistance partners, Merita and Karen Finn facilitated trainings in each location, using the Ready by 21 strategic planning framework, tools and techniques to assist and build on organizational development work already done throughout Illinois within the Division of Community Health and Prevention. Future
Ready by 21 trainings for Division staff are planned for June and August.
United Way of America's Community Leaders Conference
On May 15, Karen Pittman moderated a panel -- Preparing Youth for Success in a Global Economy -- at the Community Leaders Conference hosted by
United Way of America in Baltimore. Karen spoke about the Ready by 21 framework data on youth readiness that can be applied to work supporting youth. Panelists included Donna Klein, Corporate Voices for Working Families, who shared research on what skills employers find needed and lacking in today's high school graduates; Ron Homer, Access Capital Strategies LLC, who shared the local business perspective; Elise Buik, United Way of Greater Los Angeles; and Peg Sprague, Community Impact, United Way of Massachusetts Bay & Merrimack Valley. Both Elise and Peg shared strategies employed by their United Ways.
Karen then took this message to Boston in a keynote for the United for Children event hosted by United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley (UWMBMV). View Karen's PowerPoint.
Importance of Community/School Partnerships Keynote
Merita Irby gave a presentation at the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) State Leadership Conference on May 2 in San Francisco. The speech discussed the importance on the role of community/school partnerships and focused on a new way of doing business outlined in the "Leadership for Change" report from the
National Superintendent of the Year Forum, 2007. Read the report or learn more about our partnership with AASA.
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Job Opportunity at Atlantic Philanthropies
Disadvantaged Children & Youth (DCY) Programme Director, (Atlantic Philanthropies)
The DCY Programme Director will inherit a large, complex portfolio of approximately 150 ongoing grants. This programming involves work in the united States, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Bermuda. The new Director will be charged with leading a comprehensive review and reshaping of the DCY programme. This review is expected to build upon work and projects already underway while setting the stage for new programming in the context of a sharpened and more precise strategy. For more details regarding the position and how to apply, view the full description. |
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Sincerely,
Karen Pittman and Laura Mattis
The Forum for Youth Investment
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