Our Mission:
To ensure ALL children and youth in Petaluma have the supports, resources and opportunities to be Ready by 21: Ready for lifelong learning, ready to work, ready to live.

Introduction and Background

Communities and states across the country face the challenge of implementing a comprehensive and proactive systems approach when it comes to providing children and youth with the services, supports and opportunities they need to grow and thrive. Central to this challenge is engaging youth, families and youth-serving organizations across community sectors and collecting and presenting data in ways that build joint accountability for child and youth outcomes.

The Petaluma Youth Network (PYN) is the current manifestation of more than a decade of efforts in Petaluma to address the needs of youth in a powerful, systemic and collaborative way.

In 2009, the Petaluma Youth Network contacted the Forum for Youth Investment because The Forum’s Ready by 21^® framework was achieving success at the federal, state and regional level as a framework to assist policy makers and advocates in their efforts to develop more coordinated and aligned youth policies translating into improved practices and outcomes. The Petaluma Youth Network and the Network’s lead agency, the Healthy Community Consortium, received financial support from the California Unity Center, St. Joseph Health System – Sonoma County, and the Community Health Foundation of Greater Petaluma to create the Petaluma Ready by 21 framework, based on the work of the Forum,  and develop a community wide action plan for system change across and between child and youth serving organizations in Petaluma to achieve our mission of ensuring that all children and youth are Ready by 21 – ready for lifelong learning, work and life.

Petaluma has an abundance of child and youth programs. We have a wide array of individual and common measures. We have a decade-long history of asset-based collaborative protocols. However, despite all the excellent efforts, we can still agree that not all youth in Petaluma are ready by 21. Over the last two years, the Petaluma Youth Network has determined that in light of the current social and economic environment and the shared commitment to youth success; Petaluma does need comprehensive, shared, community-wide goals and strategies to ensure that all youth are Ready by 21. We have also agreed that we need one overall coordinating body to help facilitate this collaborative process. The Petaluma Youth Network and the Ready by 21 Initiative is this collaborative community response to the challenge of ensuring ALL youth are Ready by 21

Are we providing every child the assets they need to succeed?

The Petaluma Youth Network has been engaged in an extensive planning process over the past two years with the intent of being inclusive, comprehensive and systematic. Simultaneously, the PYN has taken action to address “hot issues” impacting children and youth and to build community capacity in the face of dramatic reductions in financial support. The planning and action process has included electronic surveys, youth focus groups, town hall meetings, expert informant meetings, strategy groups, community retreats and action teams. This paper summarizes this process.

One purpose of the Ready by 21 Initiative is to improve individual and population-level child and youth outcomes. Members of the community agree that we need goals that will

• Reduce risk
• Prevent problems and protect children from harm
• Increase access, availability and participation in opportunities
• Develop youth leadership

Members of the community also agree that we want to promote settings that support child and youth development within families and communities. We agree that we want goals that will build capacity for

• Caring adults
• Safe and structured places throughout the community
• Effective support and education for children, youth, and adults
• Opportunities for children, youth and adults to make a difference

We have come to realize also that we need to impact leadership and change institutional and public policy to change the odds for children and youth. We need to

• Have policies that support asset-based child and youth development
• Align and realign resources with policies
• Engage families and youth in policy change
• Improve the quality and reach of systems, services and programs
• Build capacity for collaborative monitoring and evaluation of progress

Developmental Areas

The Petaluma Ready by 21 Framework starts with five developmental areas that reflect the internal and external assets put forth by the Search Institute and adopted by United Way, State Department of Education, the Forum for Youth Investment and other major youth development experts. The five broad development areas are:

• Learning – developing positive basic and applied academic attitudes, skills and behaviors.
• Thriving – developing mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually; having healthy attitudes, appropriate skills and demonstrating healthy behaviors.
• Connecting –developing positive social and emotional attitudes, skills and behaviors as well as having access to safe places and supportive multi-generational relationships.
• Working – cultivating positive career development attitudes, skills and behaviors.
• Leading –having access to opportunities and resources to developing positive civic and leadership attitudes, skills, behaviors and relationships.

Age Ranges and Successful Transitions

What young people need and are capable of varies greatly as they grow up and pass through various developmental stages. The importance of young people meeting key milestones that reflect their readiness for transitioning to less structure and more complexity has been reported in youth development research and has been recognized by participants in the Petaluma Youth Network planning process. The PYN will use the following age ranges to reflect key age groups and to help us pinpoint important milestones for the purposes of ensuring that transitions in young people’s lives are addressed at the times when it is most critical:

• 0 to 5 years (Early childhood Pre Kindergarten)
• 6 to 11 years (Elementary School)
• 12 to 13 years (Junior High Schooll)
• 14 to 18 years (High school) and
• 19 to 21+ years (Young adulthood)

System Change Themes

Six themes emerged through this planning process that cross all developmental areas, age groups and goal types. These themes provide a way for people to galvanize their passion for community change and break up old habits and systems that do not serve us today. By looking through the lens of strategic themes that cross programs, sectors and age groups we can see new ways to work to increase the potential for youth success. The six themes that have emerged are:

1. Caring relationships
   Developing and strengthening peer to peer and cross generational relationships have been identified as a cornerstone of youth success. This system change theme is closely linked with two additional factors: meaningful participation and high expectations.
   
2. Youth leadership
   We know that young people who have a say in and share responsibility for their schools, cities and local organizations are invested in the future of their communities. Meaningful and developmentally needed leadership opportunities create and enhance young people’s connections and contributions to the larger community. Youth leadership occurs when young people have the opportunity to not only serve their community, but to transform their community.
   
3. Parent participation
   From early childhood through young adulthood, research shows us that parent participation is crucial to child and youth success. As our community systems have changed over the past 15 years we have seen single parent families, two working adults and increased demands on institutions to ensure safety and accountability.  Parents and youth alike are calling for a shift back to the basics of parent and adult volunteer participation.
   
4. Aligning resources and policies across  systems, age groups, all developmental areas and sectors of the community.
   Over the years as a wide array of children and youth policies and programs have been established from the local to the federal level. So have a myriad of funding streams, regulations and practices developed. We must make certain that public efforts to address children and youth issues are all “pulling in the same direction”. We want to align new and existing policies and programs to achieve shared results and ensure that public resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible.
   
5. Common measures and evaluation
   Consistently tracking the contributions of our community initiatives and programs toward common goals using a common set of ndicators will enable policy makers and practitioners to make optimally informed decisions and direct resources to the most effective strategies in these increasingly challenging economic times.
   
6. Communication
   Whether it is posting the 40 developmental assets and how to be an asset builder, a web site that links the Petaluma Ready by 21 goals, strategies and activities to community resources, or any other activity; communication, both among those involved in the network and the general public, is at the heart of the Petaluma Youth Network and our Ready by 21 Initiative.

From Plan to Action

What follows is the foundation for a community wide action plan to ensure that all children and youth have what they need to be Ready by 21. The desired outcomes, indicators and change themes are a consolidation of the ideas and hard work of all youth and adult participants in the various PYN activities during the planning process. In order to ensure a plan that can be monitored and its impact evaluated, the desired outcomes, goals and indicators included all have an identified source of local data that is available through local and/or county-level partners. They also align with a strategic county-wide initiative, Health Action, which envisions that Sonoma County will be the healthiest county in CA to live, work and play, a place where people thrive and achieve their life potential. Health Action, convened by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors in 2007, has developed 10 strategic goals, addressing key social, economic and environmental determinants of health and wellbeing. The Sonoma County Health Action Goals are integrated into the Ready by 21 Framework.

Desired outcomes for children and youth Owith potential age-specific goals

LEARNING Children and youth in Petaluma will be prepared and supported for lifelong learning and education.

• 0-5   Pre School
  Increase children entering kindergarten with a quality preschool experience.
• 6-11   Elementary School
  Increase 4th graders proficient or advanced in English language arts.
• 12-13   Jr. H.S.
  Increase 8th graders proficient or advanced in Algebra one.
• 14-18   H.S.
  Increase youth who graduate H.S. in 4 years with a plan and, prepared to advance academically.
• 19-24   Post-H.S.
  Increase youth who engage in further education/training after H.S.

WORKING Children and youth in Petaluma will be prepared and supported for employment of their choice.

• 0-5   Pre School
• 6-11   Elementary School
• 12-13   Jr. H.S.
  Increase 8th graders using the Kuder Career Planning System within their career exploration activities.
• 14-18   H.S.
  Increase youth completing internship, apprenticeship or career oriented senior project.
• 19-24   Post-H.S.
  Increase youth employed full or part-time

THRIVING Children and youth will have improved physical and mental health access and status.

• 0-5   Pre School
  Increase families and children access and utilization of preventive healthcare.
• 6-11   Elementary School
  Increase physical fitness of 5th graders.
• 12-13   Jr. H.S.
  Increase utilization of mental health services by youth.
• 14-18   H.S.
  Increase utilization of health services by youth.
• 19-24   Post-H.S.
  Decrease self-reported binge drinking among youth.

CONNECTING Children and youth in Petaluma will be an obvious part of the community’s social fabric.

• 0-5   Pre School
  Increase children in early childhood education.
• 6-11   Elementary School
  Increase children reporting that they have someone they consider to be a mentor.
• 12-13   Jr. H.S.
  Increase youth reporting meaningful participation in school.
• 14-18   H.S.
  Increase youth participating in community service/service learning projects.
• 19-24   Post-H.S.
  Increase voter registration among youth.

LEADING Children and youth in Petaluma will have leadership roles among peers and in the community.

• 0-5   Pre School
• 6-11   Elementary School
  Increase by XX# children being mentored by older youth.
• 12-13   Jr. H.S.
  Increase by XX# youth being mentored by older youth.
• 14-18   H.S.
  Increase by XX# of youth actively participating in boards, committees and commissions.
• 19-24   Post-H.S.
  Increase by XX# of youth actively participating in boards, committees and commissions.

The Petaluma Youth Network has begun to identify system change goals to build family and community capacity as well as support leadersip and policy change. System change goals are achieved in settings throughout the community. These system changes will support caring adults, safe and structured places, effective supports and opportunities to make a difference. This way, all three “gears” in the Ready by 21 frame work will be engaged to improve child and youth outcomes.

System change goals addressing family and community involvement/leadership and policy

• Increase family participation in parenting support resources and programs in school and community settings.
• Increase offerings and adult participation in mentoring and tutoring programs.
• Increase offerings and youth participation in career exploration, job shadowing, apprenticeship, service learning, and internship opportunities.
• Increase adult and youth volunteerism throughout school and other community settings
• Increase parent participation in advisory committees or boards of youth serving organizations.
• Increase self-sufficiency and reduce poverty among families of children and youth.
• Increase youth and adult governance bodies in public and agency settings that are representative of Petaluma’s current demographics.
• Increase opportunities for youth and parent leadership in public and organizational advisory and decision-making bodies.
• Enhance development, implementation, monitoring and reporting of all school Wellness plans.
• Reduce outcome disparities in sub-groups child and youth outcomes.

NEXT STEPS

Over the last six months, the Petaluma Youth Network has supported the work of action teams that formed in February 2010. We have also seen a shift in how individual programs, agencies and sectors of the community are speaking about their individual work as part of the broader Ready by 21 picture. PYN hosted an end of year summit in June where community members shared results and opportunities. We saw the formation of Petaluma Teens 4 Teens, the launching of a parent volunteer program at one junior high school, a Latino civic engagement initiative and expansion of neighborhood based family resource centers and early childhood education.

What is needed now is to develop a steering committee representing sectors, programs and action teams and to move the Ready by 21 Initiative from this broad framework to specific agency commitments, alignment on goals, targets indicators and accountability.  We also see the need and value

This is the work of the Ready by 21 Initiative for 2010-2014.

Acknowledgement:

We wish to acknowledge the Forum for Youth Investment for technical assistance and Iowa Collaboration for Youth Development, Massachusetts State Wide Action Plan, Ready by 21 Austin and Georgetown Divide for examples of tools and documents.