Positive Youth Development State and Local Collaboration Demonstration Projects
Fiscal Year 2005 Highlights: New York

Local community: Rochester County, Sector 8

Rochester’s Sector 8, in the northeast quadrant, ranks among the city’s highest risk areas, with many runaway youth and a high incidence of crime and delinquency. Together, the county and city governments have committed to increasing opportunities for young people by building the community’s ability to address its own problems. The New York collaborators also encourage businesses, churches, and law enforcement to recognize the contributions that young people can make. Rather than starting new initiatives, the project works to increase youth involvement in existing neighborhood associations.

Partners:

New York State Office of Children and Family Services
Center for Youth Services
Rochester-Monroe County Youth Bureau
North East Area Development, Inc.
Adonai Community Place
City of Rochester Department of Parks, Recreation and Human Services

In Fiscal Year 2005, the New York project

• Held a communitywide retreat, in which adult and youth neighbors identified ways to improve the community
  
• Ran a competition in which youth could apply for minigrants for youth-led community improvement projects
  
• Started a training program on Asset Based Community Development

Challenges to the collaboration project’s work include

• Getting community members to understand Positive Youth Development and take ownership of the project
  
• Defining the roles of the various partners
  
• Creating a decisionmaking process that respects the interests and rules of agencies and the motivation and commitment of community members