by William H. Woodwell Jr.

Making the case for citywide action is one of the first challenges facing local elected officials and their partners working to strengthen families and improve outcomes for children and youth. 

Participants in the 2005 National Summit on Your City?s Families, held last month in San Antonio, Texas, heard from local officials, communications experts and others about successful strategies for generating community support for new and expanded initiatives and investments. 

A common theme in the conversations at the summit: emphasizing return on investment and accountability as opposed to tugging at people?s heartstrings and making moralistic appeals. 

?We need to make this not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do,? said Janelle Cousino, vice president of the communications firm Fowler Hoffman in Washington, D.C. 

Big Returns for Investments in Little People
Cousino presented her views in a summit session entitled ?From Our Front Porch to Yours: Strategies to Get the Word Out.?

Among the presenters at the session was Lisa McGrath of the PBS affiliate in San Antonio. 

McGrath described San Antonio?s Early ON, which teams the city with the media, the schools and community-based organizations in a wide-ranging public awareness effort to educate parents and early childhood providers about school readiness.

Early ON, according to McGrath, was launched in 2000 after educators and other community members expressed alarm about the large numbers of local children who were entering kindergarten unprepared.

To recruit business support for the campaign, its organizers stressed research showing that every $1 invested in early childhood education resulted in $4.47 in increased economic activity in the community. The same $1 investment also yields $7.26 in savings because of reduced levels of crime and lower costs for special education and welfare.

?The idea we started to communicate to the community was that these early investments produce big rewards down the line,? said McGrath, ?including a better-prepared and more highly paid workforce.?

Another community that has been working to emphasize the positive economic impacts of investments in early childhood education is Greenville, S.C.

Like San Antonio?s Early ON, Greenville?s Early Childhood Development Strategic Plan is based on an understanding that support from the private sector is crucial if government intends to expand early childhood programming. 

?We are a business-oriented community,? said Mayor Pro Tem Diane Smock, citing the presence in the Greenville area of such international companies as BMW, Michelin, and Hitachi.

?We had to come up with reasons why city government should be involved in this issue, even though we do not run the schools.?

As in San Antonio, the case for action was made largely on economic grounds. To build support among larger businesses in the area, Greenville leaders emphasized the role of early education in ensuring a productive and qualified future workforce.

And, in their outreach to smaller ?Mom-and-Pop? businesses, the city and its partners emphasized how quality preschool programs can reduce absenteeism and stress among working parents.

Smock described the city?s message in simple terms, ?If our families are prospering, then our businesses prosper and our city prospers.? 

Institutionalizing a Focus on Youth
Among the summit participants seeking insights on communications and outreach issues was a group from Minneapolis, where the city?s Youth Coordinating Board is beginning work on a 15-year action plan for enhancing healthy child and youth development.

Team members, who included representatives of the city, the schools and Youth Coordinating Board staff, used their time together at the summit to brainstorm about opportunities for building communitywide support for the agenda.

In discussions with a facilitator that NLC provided for city teams of four or more at the summit, the six-member team identified a number of strategies for moving forward. Among the ideas: creating and disseminating standards to bring more attention to the essential elements of successful youth programs; and sponsoring citizen surveys to get the public?s input on key investments in children and families. 

?One thing we are looking at is how to institutionalize this focus on children and youth so it doesn?t rely on just one person or group,? said Judith Kahn, executive director of the Youth Coordinating Board.

Alan Ickler, community education manager with Minneapolis Public Schools, suggested that the group might want to create a few ?modest goals? for the first one to three years of the effort rather than framing an overly ambitious agenda.

?Early victories can get a lot of publicity? and generate community support for continued progress, he said.

Accountability as a Selling Point
Mayor Otis Johnson of Savannah, Ga., put in a word for accountability as a cornerstone of any effort to build public support for investments in children, youth, and families.  In the closing general session of the conference, Johnson appeared with Mayors Ron Gonzales of San Jose, Calif., and Bill Purcell of Nashville, Tenn.  

Under his administration, Johnson said, Savannah is striving to revitalize low-income, ?forgotten? neighborhoods through a comprehensive approach aimed at strengthening families and getting citizens involved.

?If we want strong neighborhoods, we have to have strong families in those neighborhoods,? he said. 

The challenge, however, is that many residents and business and community leaders may be wary of an expanded government commitment to these neighborhoods. Among the reasons: the failure of similarly well-intentioned efforts in the past.

?Public confidence in our ability to use money wisely is low,? Johnson said.  

As a result, Savannah is making accountability and measurement key features of its neighborhood revitalization work. ?Talking about doing good may be necessary, but it is insufficient,? he said.

?Unless we can measure what we are achieving, we can?t get funding and keep the public will in place.?

Details: For more information on discussions at the summit, go to www.nlc.org/iyef.

Tapping the Youth Voice
During a question-and-answer session following her remarks at the Summit on Your City?s Families, Carol Bellamy, president and CEO of World Learning and former director of UNICEF, suggested that young people should be recruited as spokespeople and advocates for initiatives that can benefit them and their peers. 

?Get young people to talk about how they think the city can be better,? Bellamy advised. ?It brings a real freshness to the discussion and a firsthand perspective on issues from parks and recreation to what?s happening or not in the afterschool hours.?

Not only can the ?youth voice? raise important issues, but talking with young people also can help local elected officials better understand their parents? concerns and priorities, Bellamy said.  

The benefits of engaging young people were the focus of a summit session entitled, ?Youth Voice, Youth Leadership.? The session drew attention to the work of three diverse cities to engage teens in local decision-making. Presenters included members of the Mayor?s Youth Corps in Tampa, Fla.; Claremont, Calif.?s Teen Committee; and the Mayor?s Youth Advisory Council in Caldwell, Idaho. 

Caldwell students Brad Burbanks and Amanda Holmes, both 17, said the council recently played a key role in bringing a new YMCA to their city. ?It was an idea that came from the youth in the community, and the council really helped make it happen,? said Burbanks.