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Welcome to the November 25 Ready by 21® National Partnership Update Newsletter.
The purpose of this publication is to make all partners aware of upcoming meetings, event, happenings, and news related to Ready by 21. Contact Ian Faigley if you have stories or news you would like to share or if there are additional people on your team you would like added.
We have created a password-protected Ready by 21 Partnership area on our website. You can access this site for full versions of the articles listed below as well as archives of previous updates. For the 'Read More" links below, you will have to enter the following username and password. You will only have to enter the password once if you click the button on your browser to save it.
Username for all- partner
Password for all- readyby21
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A Note From Karen Pittman
Happy Thanksgiving! Clearly, as a partnership we have much to be thankful for. As we move into our 6th month of being "open for business" I believe we are all beginning to see the enormous potential value of our growing efforts to work differently together. The Search Conference helped us achieve many objectives. One of the most important was that it gave us an opportunity to work with and learn from each other outside of our monthly meetings.
Our meeting with the Altria team on December 8th will provide us with a powerful opportunity to demonstrate the value of this unique partnership. We're ready to report not just on the further development of our principles, but on the emerging practices, projects and work in real places. 2010 will be the year in which we have to demonstrate that we can operate with precision (developing and using metrics for gauging our efforts and helping communities gauge theirs). The December 8th meeting, however, provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate our passion for the collective work plan we have created.
I'll be using my Thanksgiving break to review the revised plans you've submitted and bring back the first glimpses of the collective picture we're all anxious understand and own.
Meeting on December 8th
The December Steering Committee meeting will be joined by Jennifer Hunter and Jennifer Ginther of Altria Client Services. We will take this opportunity to highlight the great progress of the Partnership and discuss our work moving forward. The meeting will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Altria Offices, 101 Constitution Avenue, NW Suite 400.
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News
Search Institute Healthy Communities Healthy Youth Conference Follow-Up
Thank you to everyone who was involved in any way with the Search Conference. We can not thank Search Institute enough for giving us this wonderful opportunity to truly open the doors of Ready by 21 to a mass audience. All the presentation materials that were used during the Ready by 21 sessions are now available online at the following link- http://tiny.cc/buqV2. Choose the session you are interested in and click on the title for that presentation. Also, all the Forum presentations are now on workstation. Ready by 21 in the News
Forum staff recently facilitated a community wide discussion on the dropout issue in Chattanooga, TN using Ready by 21 tools and concepts. The event, which brought together over 400 people, was widely reported in the local news.
http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11535219
The city of Petaluma, CA, is engaging the Petaluma Youth Network in an action planning process in order to set bigger goals and use bolder strategies using the Ready by 21 framework. Here is a recent article on their efforts:
Technical Partner Update
The Technical Partners reported being pleased with their experience at the Search Conference. Six partners had exhibit booths and they reported that the opportunity to spend time with each other was very valuable and they saw increasing opportunities to fit their work together. We were able to produce for the first time a public edition of the Tools and Services Guide and make a presentation together as a partnership at the workshop on integrating data. In the debrief on the conference, good positive feedback was given on the Guide with some specific suggestions to add more of a consumer focus and address how these tools help leaders solve problems that they are currently facing. All Tech Partners need to complete the templates for their tools, trainings and services on the workstation. We need these now as we go into the audit and start to receive increasing requests for assistance. Tech Partners are also providing final thoughts and feedback on the language of the Guide's message.
National League of Cities and the Bill and Melinda Gates Offer Grants to Seven Cities
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced $4 million in grants to the National League of Cities' Institute for Youth, Education and Families, and seven cities to boost college graduation rates by better coordinating the services that colleges, schools and communities provide to students. The grants will help cities and colleges in New York, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and California dramatically increase the number of young people who earn a degree beyond high school. These grants recognize that successfully reaching that goal will require education, business, and civic leaders working together to coordinate and streamline the guidance and services young people need to get into, and through, college.
Forum Teams with Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality and the Capital Area United Way on Youth Program Quality Webinar
In November, 2009, the Forum for Youth Investment hosted a webinar on the topic "Assessing and Improving Youth Program Quality". Part of the Ready by 21 Webinar series, the session offered the opportunity to hear from experts on the topic of youth program quality from the Forum, the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality and the United Way Capital Area of Austin, Texas. The webinar explored foundational concepts such as why a community would want to gather information regarding program quality and how the information can be used to help leaders make decisions and take action. The discussion also reviewed specific tools for measuring, tracking and improving quality and explored the impact that a focus on quality has had for youth programs in Austin, TX. To review the presentation, audio, summary or further resources, please visit here.
Corporate Voices Present on Ready by 21 in Society for Human Resources Management Webinar
On Thursday, November 12, 2009, Melissa Hough and Elyse Rosenblum participated in a webinar hosted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Melissa and Elyse presented on Corporate Voices' research around workforce readiness issues and the role business can play with the community in preparing youth for work. They also discussed Corporate Voices new role in Ready by 21 Partnership and urged business leaders to contact them if they are located in the first cohort of southeast cities. More than 100 business representatives from across the country participated in the webinar.
Ready by 21 Ad Appears in November Atlantic
Thank you to Altria/Philip Morris USA for a third appearance of the Rb21 ad in a one-page version published in the November issue of The Atlantic.
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Upcoming Partnership Meetings
Below please find the important dates and information for the Ready by 21 Partnership in December and beyond
Upcoming Steering Committee Meeting-December 8th
10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Altria Client Services
101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Suite #400
Revision/Exploration of New Dates for Partner Meetings
Moving into 2010, we will be looking to change our meeting day from Tuesday to a day later in the week. The Tuesday meetings pose several challenges for planning purposes. In order to maximize attendance, please email Jonathan with any standing appointments (e.g. weekly staff meetings) that would make it difficult for you t to meet on a particular day. We will get a revised meeting schedule to you as quickly as possible.
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Upcoming Events and Opportunities
Upcoming Ready by 21 Webinar-The Ready by 21 Tool Kit: Tools for Building Better Partnerships and Designing Bolder Strategies- December 17, 2:00-3:00 pm EDT
The next Ready by 21 webinar will be on December 17 from 2:00pm-3:00pm (EST). This session will explore a range of tools from Ready by 21 partners that can help answer key questions. Learn to ask and answer more complex questions about who and where children are; how well they are doing; what they are participating in; and how these critical supports are, in turn, being viewed and supported. The Ready by 21 Partnership represents a broad suite of tools and services to help leaders collect, analyze and use information. Click here to register.
Ready by 21 Workstation Update
Several changes have been made to the Workstation and are ready for you to finalize your Partner activities, uploads and documentation. Each site has been reconstituted to streamline the process and to make the process of completing your documentation as simple as possible. A few notes about your new Workstation partner site:
- Your partner sites each have a slightly different URL (web address) from your previous site. If you were using a bookmark in your browser to navigate to your partner site, please discard that bookmark and navigate to your new site by first accessing www.fyiworkstation.org. You can then replace your bookmark with the new site address.
- You may notice that the links to your individual partner page have a "(2)" next to the link in the Workstation Quick Launch (left-side navigation). This is a temporary placeholder while we verify that all information entered into the Workstation to date has been transferred to your new site. This designation will be removed on Monday, Nov. 23.
- If you have already entered information or uploaded documents to your Workstation and you do not see those items on your reconstituted site, be assured that the information HAS NOT BEEN LOST. CSG is in the process of relocating your information to your new site. This process will be completed in full no later than Nov. 20.
- Several "lists" within the Workstation contain new data connections you may not be familiar with. Many of those connections are described in the instructions for our key tasks. If you have questions about these data connections, please contact Jeff Stowell at jstowell@communitysystemsgroup.com or (800) 274-4142.
AASA National Conference on Education Taking Place in Phoenix, AZ on February 11-13
Please save the date for the American Association of School Administrators National Conference on Education, entitled "Build A Stronger Future," to be held February 11-13th, 2010 in Phoenix, AZ. The regular registration deadline for attendees is Jan. 14, 2010. Exhibitor booths are also available. More information can be found at: http://www.aasa.org/NCE/.
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Jonathan Williams, Ian Faigley and the Ready by 21® National Partnership Team
The Forum for Youth Investment
For more information, contact Jonathan Williams at jonathan@forumfyi.org or Ian Faigley at ian@forumfyi.org.
Ready by 21 is a registered trademark of the Forum for Youth Investment.
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