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National Report Highlights the State of City Leadership for Children and Families
10/13/09
Washington, DC –A new report by the National League of Cities (NLC), The State of City Leadership for Children and Families in 2009, identifies the nation’s most cutting-edge city innovations to help children and families thrive.
The State of City Leadership report shows the progress cities have made and the potential for future action as municipal leaders identify and share promising practices to improve the lives of children, youth, and families. The innovations and trends included in the report were selected based on NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families’ (YEF Institute) intensive work with thousands of municipal officials in hundreds of cities over the past 10 years.
The report is being released during the 2009 National Summit on Your City’s Families. For more information on the summit, visit www.nlc.org/iyef.
Even as cities grapple with the worst budget outlook in decades, mayors and other municipal leaders have maintained a strong commitment to children, youth and their families. The State of City Leadership report focuses on municipal innovations and trends in:
• Early childhood success;
• Education;
• Afterschool;
• Youth in transition;
• Youth violence prevention;
• Community wellness;
• Youth civic engagement;
• Family economic success; and
• Local “infrastructure” – such as cross-agency planning entities, data sharing efforts, and creative financing mechanisms – to support children and families.
“Cities are America’s public policy laboratories,” said Clifford M. Johnson, executive director of NLC’s YEF Institute, which published the report. “In recent years, municipal leaders have tested creative approaches to some of the nation’s greatest challenges and achieved impressive results. The local innovations featured in this report are inspiring other municipal officials in communities across the country to take their efforts to the next level, and can serve as a guide for federal policymakers seeking to replicate and bring to scale effective local practices.”
The National League of Cities is the nation’s oldest and largest organization devoted to strengthening and promoting cities as centers of opportunity, leadership and governance. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans.
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