CHILDREN FIRST - YOLO COUNTY’S
FIRST CHILDREN’S SUMMIT
By Dave Rosenberg
Yolo County Supervisor, District Four
Yolo County’s first ever Children’s Summit will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Veteran’s Memorial facility at 203 E. 14th Street in Davis on Thursday, April 22, 1999. Lunch and conference materials will be provided. The summit is sponsored by the Yolo County Criminal Justice Cabinet, the Yolo County Human Services Leadership Team, the Yolo County Health Council and the Community Services Action Board. Space is donated by the City of Davis.
Almost two years ago, I proposed the convening of a Yolo County Children’s Summit to focus attention on children’s needs in this County. Frankly, it is my hope that the concept of a Children’s Summit can be institutionalized in Yolo County, and can be scheduled once a year, every year. The list of needs and challenges we face regarding children’s issues - health, drugs and alcohol, education, crime, disabilities, etc. - is a long one. Accordingly, I hope this becomes the "First Annual" Children’s Summit.
The Children’s Summit will explore the needs of youth currently in or at highest risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. The purpose of the summit is to identify resources as well as gaps and to prioritize unmet needs with the goal of improving services and service coordination. An invitation is being sent out to persons and institutions which serve youth such as school districts, police department, cities, including parks and recreation, elected city councils, organizations which serve youth, non-profits and county agencies which serve youth.
At the summit, a mural will be affixed to one wall which describes the array of services to youth from prevention to locked facilities. The mural will describe all the services and place them along a continuum of care. The target population and cost and numbers served will also be included. There will be some mechanism for identifying missing services and overlaps so that participants might propose new options as a result of the summit. Handouts will include the same information as the mural plus additional demographic information. There will also be opportunities for organizations to showcase their services and answer questions during breaks.
The morning of the summit will open with registration and refreshments. As the person who first proposed the Children’s Summit, I will open the summit with a welcome. A keynote speaker will then lend focus to the summit. The speaker’s remarks will attempt to overview the demographics of the target population, some statewide comparisons with Yolo County issues, a defining of terms used, trends and unmet needs. After a break, participants will divide into work groups of 15 or under and focus on one of the following target populations: abused and neglected children, delinquent youth, mentally ill youth and alcohol and drug involved youth. These groups are not mutually exclusive, but they seemed to provide a logical divide. A resource person will be assigned to each group. The job of the resource person will be to look at scenarios of youth in need of services and create a plan based on the services available. If appropriate services are not available, they will identify those gaps. The groups will choose their own facilitators and recorders, but the resource people will assist with information. At lunch, participants will stay in their work groups and summarize the gaps in services and prioritize the needs. After lunch, work groups will focus on needs common to all youth such as education/schools, health care, recreation, out of home placements and job training and employment services. These groups will consider the resources in their areas and identify gaps in services followed by a prioritization process. Each group will decide on its top three priorities. After a break, there will be a plenary session with reports from the work groups and a group prioritization process. The last activity will be a pulling together of all the results with follow up plans and designation of representatives on the follow up committees.
The planning committee for the Children’s Summit consists of county staff and citizen members of the Health Council and the Community Services Action Board. A voicemail and email address will be created for the Children’s Summit and will be answered daily by staff. For more information on the Children’s Summit, call Don Ishikawa at 666-8150 or Joan Parnas at 666-8652.