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Facilitated by CFRC in Lafayette Indiana , Our Kids Are Our Community is an open-membership partnership, comprised of individuals and organizations who are interested in working together to help youth. Its mission includes:

establishing the Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets for youth as the common vocabulary and model for practice for the community

engaging community partners to advance asset-building for all youth, and to reduce child abuse and neglect

serving as a community board for youth programs and grants that require that kind of oversight

‘Our Kids’ activities include networking and communication to support collaboration among schools, families, social service agencies, juvenile justice, neighborhoods, government, and the faith community; conducting community conversations such as forums and the annual youth summit; forwarding specific summit goals through a system of sub-committees; along with CAPE grant and Title V grant oversight.

Miami Elementary

Mentor Program

Volunteers Needed!

Click Here for Details

The Lafayette Crisis Center has launched their comprehensive human service database on the web. This service is free and, like all Crisis Center services, available every hour of every day. Click here to check it out!

Tippecanoe County recently received a big boost in its efforts to help all youth succeed. It is the only Indiana community to be named to the 2008 list of 100 Best Communities for Young people by America’s Promise Alliance. The award recognizes outstanding practices grounded in research-based principles and collaboration that support what America’s Promise terms the Five Promises. The promises embody the 40 Assets and reflect what young people should be able to count on from their community: caring adults, effective education, safe places, a healthy start, and the opportunity to help others.

Our application was initiated by the Lafayette-West Lafayette Development Corporation, and the results were announced nationally January 24. Three hundred communities applied. The full list of winners is available at www.americaspromise.org. Our Kids’ collaborative partners lead by Ivy Tech’s Pat Corey and CFRC’s Trish Brutus collected the data necessary complete Tippecanoe’s . (click application for downloadable word.doc).

Tippecanoe County officials joined many who assisted in the application at CFRC on the 24th to let the community know how the award will help young people. Speakers included Joe Seaman, Pat Corey, Pam Biggs-Reed, Randy Lee Stanley, Jr., Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski, West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis, and Tippecanoe County Commissioner KD Benson. Lafayette School Superintendent Ed Eiler’s comments were especially inspiring, and we thought you would enjoy reading them in their entirety (click here).

Over the next year, the community will be able to apply for a grant from America’s Promise, attend a conference to share best practices with other winning communities, and use the award to open doors to other grant opportunities. Most important, however, through the application process we were able to benchmark our county in several key areas and to begin to create a narrative of the many efforts underway to support youth. The application forms a record on which we can build. We plan to apply for the award in the future to help us discipline our practices and to maintain the benchmarks.

There is more to do.

If you are an Our Kids partner and would like to use the 100 Best seal for your organization, please print and sign the license agreement below and return to Pam Biggs Reed at CFRC. Fax: (765) 742-5040.