More Than 350 City Leaders Gather in Boston for 2009 National Summit on Your City’s Families

Altogether, more than 350 local leaders participated in the 2009 National Summit on Your City’s Families over Columbus Day weekend, learning about cutting-edge municipal approaches and strategies to help families during tough economic times.

The summit marked several milestones: the 10-year anniversary of the YEF Institute, which was launched in Boston in January 2000; the first year of the Mayors’ Action Challenge for Children and Families, which has engaged more than 100 mayors; and the release of the institute’s first report on “The State of City Leadership for Children and Families,” a groundbreaking publication that identifies the broad range of municipal innovations and trends to promote child and family well-being.

Yet the most important feature of the summit remained unchanged: the event’s invaluable peer-to-peer learning opportunities offered new ideas to effectively address common problems, and fostered lasting relationships among colleagues in cities across the country that will bolster local efforts for years to come.

From Birth Through College Success

On October 11, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino opened the summit by sharing why his city is among the nation’s foremost innovators in education.

“Powered with partnerships, Boston is making the school day an outdated label,” said Menino. “From dawn to dusk, from birth through college success, we work with families to help all children reach their full potential.

In showcasing a coalition for prenatal health, full-day pre-kindergarten programs and a “Parents University,” which engages parents in their children’s education, Menino said, “We are focused on helping parents before their children are even born.”

Noting that two-thirds of Boston’s high school students go to college, but less than one-third receive a college diploma, Menino highlighted Success Boston, an initiative to increase postsecondary completion rates. The mayor also discussed two of five initiatives that attendees visited in mobile workshops: the Reengagement Center, which helps dropouts get back on track, and the Community Learning Initiative, which aligns schools, libraries and community centers at sites such as Burke High School to create a “hub of learning” where “students experience a seamless string of support throughout the day and into the night.”

Mayor Menino closed by sharing lessons learned during the 10 years since the creation of the YEF Institute. 

“Don’t be afraid of taking risks or gathering data that may make you uncomfortable,” said Menino. “Cities are learning laboratories for our country, and we have a chance to challenge assumptions to take our strategies to the next level. Make sure youth voices are at the table; in order to serve young people you need to know what they need. … And look beyond the walls of the schools — use all of your city’s assets to push progress.

“As mayor for 16 years, probably the most important thing I did was spend more time on education than most things.”

Environment Drives Behavior

Another high point of the summit was an uplifting October 12 keynote address by William Strickland, whose Manchester Bidwell Corporation has served young people and adults for more than 40 years. Located in Manchester, which Strickland classifies as “the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh with the highest crime rate,” the state-of-the-art facilities house training and education programs in ceramics, jazz, culinary arts, remedial reading, digital imaging, building trades, and pharmaceutical and chemical research.

The Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and Bidwell Training Center that Strickland oversees seeks to provide “the cure for spiritual cancer” with a fountain in front of the building, works of art throughout the school and architectural design based on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. 

“This is what a school for poor people is supposed to look like,” said Strickland. “So when welfare mothers, ex-steelworkers and at-risk kids come to that school, this is our version of how to treat people. ... Environment drives behavior. You build world-class environments, you get world class students. You build prisons, you get prisoners.”

Pointing out that “people are born into the world as assets, not liabilities,” Strickland highlighted a school success rate of more than 90 percent among the center’s students and not one incident of graffiti, theft, drug use or racial violence in more than 24 years. With a goal of replicating the center in more than 100 U.S. cities, similar nonprofits have opened in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Grand Rapids, Mich., and San Francisco.

“You can’t teach kids algebra if they don’t want to live,” said Strickland. “Let’s build schools that kids want to go to and get excited about, then you can teach them something.”

The Bully Pulpit

An October 13 general session featured a panel of mayoral champions for children and youth. Moderated by former Nashville, Tenn., Mayor Bill Purcell, panelists included current Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, Savannah, Ga., Mayor Otis Johnson and Cambridge, Mass., Mayor E. Denise Simmons.

This session can be viewed on NLCTV at www.nlctv.org.

The mayors discussed their unique “bully pulpit,” which empowers them to bring local partners together around common goals. For instance, Mayor Dean is bringing education reform ideas from around the country to Nashville — from the Alternative High School Initiative and the New Teacher Project to an anti-truancy center and neighborhood afterschool zones modeled on efforts in Providence, R.I. Mayor Simmons has brought stakeholders together in the Cambridge Kids Council to improve evaluation of local programs. In Savannah, Mayor Johnson has supported efforts to divert youth from the juvenile justice system by reducing referrals to juvenile court for minor infractions.

Youth-Adult Partnerships

Co-moderated by Norfolk, Va., Councilmember Daun Hester and Tampa, Fla., Mayor’s Youth Corps member Daniel Johnson, youth leaders and city staff from Boston and Fall River, Mass., focused on how youth-adult partnerships can strengthen cities.

The session explored strategies for engaging diverse youth in local government, and highlighted successes, challenges and lessons learned from youth civic engagement efforts. For instance, Fall River has followed the lead of Portland, Ore., and developed a Children and Youth Bill of Rights to guide youth engagement. One of the first youth representatives to serve on the YEF Council, Ronaldo Rauseo-Ricupero of Boston, also returned to describe how his experiences as a youth leader shaped his adult life 10 years later.

Raising Moral Children

During Tuesday’s closing session, Richard Weissbourd, a child and family psychologist from Harvard University, discussed how families and communities can promote children’s moral and emotional development. Weissbourd described key themes from his new book, “The Parents We Mean to Be,” including ways in which adults can support children as they develop moral reasoning skills and learn how to apply the values they are taught in their daily lives.

This session is also featured on NLCTV.

Learning From the Experts

In addition to the general sessions, summit attendees participated in 14 workshops on a broad range of strategies, including employment partnerships, preschool and afterschool systems, Promise Neighborhoods, health care access, violence prevention models, financial stability initiatives, urban design for community wellness, and homelessness and foreclosure prevention.

The summit also included trainings on using data effectively and engaging local partners, and a “World Café” session to highlight 20 of the city innovations featured in NLC’s “State of City Leadership” report.

Details: To download summit resources and view and listen to recordings of general sessions, visit www.nlc.org/iyef. To learn more about the YEF Institute, contact Michael Karpman at (202) 626-3072 or karpman@nlc.org.