The DeKalb County Keep Encouraging Youth to Succeed (KEYS) Initiative, a Healthy Communities – Healthy Youth initiative, would like to extend an invitation to the entire community to learn more about their efforts.
The KEYS Initiative is hosting a community discussion from 11:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. this Friday, January 21st at the DeKalb County Community Outreach Building, next to the DeKalb County Health Department, 2500 N. Annie Glidden Road in DeKalb. This event is being held in cooperation with the DeKalb County Community Foundation and is open to the entire community.
The community discussion will feature Melissa Trumbull Mitchell from the Federation for Community Schools. She will facilitate a discussion on the value of family and community engagement in schools and help identify how this is working in our community.
We are one of more than 600 communities across the country and one of three recognized in Illinois that are working together to nurture, encourage, and support all young people in our community. These efforts are based on research from the Search Institute, a national nonprofit organization in Minneapolis.
The Search Institute has identified 40 concrete, positive experiences and qualities that have a tremendous influence on young people from all walks of life. These 40 things are called developmental assets, and we all have the power to bring them into the lives of our children and youth.
The initiative has existed in the community since 2007. They actively seek the involvement and support of community organizations, government agencies, businesses, schools, congregations and other caring individuals to turn this community into a place that cares for and nurtures our young people.
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2 Comments
This sounds like a cool program. Was it well attended?
What are those 40 principles?
With your background in Family Social Services do you think this is a worthwhile initiative?
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About 70 people showed up for the event Nadine! And yes, I do feel this is a worthwhile initiative, so much so that we have donated a free website to the KEYS Initiative 🙂 We are in the process of adding more pages to it but you can read more about the 40 principles there at: http://www.dekalbcountykeys.org . As a former Probation Officer I believe we focus too much on the negatives with teens when a better approach would be to teach them more positive behaviors. This initiative does just that.