A Monthly Report Card on Helping City of Alexandria Kids Succeed through the Children & Youth Community Plan: Focus on Youth Helping Others

For Immediate Release: July 21, 2022

The City of Alexandria Children & Youth Community Plan 2025 (CYCP) sets long-term priorities and provides a roadmap to success through community-wide coordination and delivery of services to all city children from birth to 21 years-old and their families.

CYCP 2025 goals include ensuring that all children, youth and families: 1) are physically safe and healthy 2) are academically successful and career readyand 3) have positive experiences.

Each month, the CYCP highlights areas of progress through the CYCP Report Card. This month, the CYCP features youth helping others in the community.

Service to others is one of the 40 Developmental Assetsthat help young people grow up to be healthy, caring and responsible. When youth help others, they expand their worldview, grow more confident and see that they can make a difference. They do better in school and avoid risky behaviors. They are also more apt to value diversity, vote, have a positive work ethic, and grow up to be socially responsible.

There are, however, barriers that prevent youth from serving such as not knowing how, competing demands, lack of resources to support volunteering, lack of confidence, negative perceptions of community service, age discrimination, complexity or ambiguity of the work/role, lack of inclusive practices, and more. Studies show that youth from more advantaged backgrounds volunteer more.

See the full report card and find out how the CYCP, Volunteer Alexandria and other collaborators are working to encourage young people to see the value in helping others. See the strategies to expand opportunities for youth, examples of work youth have done and other resources.

As a partner in the trio comprising the City's Unified Implementation Team, the Department of Community and Human Services CYCP Coordinator is working with Alexandria City Public Schools and the Alexandria Health Department to align their three respective strategic plans in areas of shared goals. The Team is guided by three principles: 1) trauma-informed approaches to raise awarenessof the prevalence of trauma and target root causes2) racial equity, which aims to correct systems and policies that negatively impact Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and 3) the use of developmental assets to mitigate adverse childhood experiences. Learn more about the Unified Implementation Team and their plans.

For inquiries from the news media on the CYCP report cards, please contact CYCP Coordinator Chelsea Eickert at 571.447.8132 or [email protected].

This release is available at: alexandriava.gov/go/3800

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