Community Engagement

DCAYA works to engage the community – both youth and the organizations that serve them – in advocacy and speaking out for their needs. We work with our members to organize around issues that affect DC’s youth, and build members’ skills to be effective organizers and advocates. Our immediate constituency is our organizational members – non-profit youth-engaged organizations in the District of Columbia. The constituencies of DCAYA’s more than 40 member organizations range from very large and established to those that are newly formed. Through our member organizations and additional outreach, our work reaches at least 10,000 people.

We organize communities to bring these issues to the attention of the broader public. Our events feature compelling stories and real-life experiences articulated by people who are most affected. Our community events attract the attention of both stakeholders and the media, thereby generating greater awareness of youth’s needs to both the public and policymakers. Our members have appeared on television and in local newspapers to discuss effective youth development, reinforcing our message throughout the community.

Recent Community Engagement Activities:

Recommendations to Improve the DC Summer Youth Employment Program

The following initial recommendations were composed by DCAYA members, using the Youth Action Research Group report “DC SYEP Evaluation Report, 2007” as a source for additional information and ideas. The following recommendations are a response to the problems with the 2008 DC Summer Youth Employment Program. Read the full recommendations here.

Rally to Preserve Summer Youth Programs

On October 30th, DCAYA organized 100 young people, parents, concerned residents and youth advocates from across the city to rally on the steps of the Wilson Building on Tuesday. The purpose of the rally was to urge Mayor Adrian Fenty to invest $6 million of the city’s $100 million surplus to preserve summer youth programs in 2008.

Without additional funds, dozens of summer programs that help thousands of youth build skills, increase academic achievement and develop healthy behaviors will be eliminated or dramatically cut. Since 2006, funding from the city to the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation’s summer programming has been cut by more than half, from $6 million in FY 2006 to $2.5 million in FY 2008, leaving summer programs in real danger.

Each year, the city awards funds to the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation, which then makes grants to community-based organizations (CBOs) that operate summer arts, academic enrichment and recreational programs throughout the city. In 2007, CYITC made grants to more than 100 organizations, reaching more than 10,000 children and youth.

These programs help young people fight the learning loss that occurs during the summer months and, by keeping youth active and providing healthy meals, the programs also help to take on obesity. In 2006, for example, 29,000 children ate nutritional breakfast and lunch through the CYITC-backed programs.

These programs work to actively engage young people in learning, with interesting activities offered such as playwriting workshops, a NASA astronomy program, and field trips to the Frederick Douglass National Historical Site and the National Museum of History. Of course, the programs are careful to balance the fun factor as well, taking participants to Nationals games and on nature excursions.

Disconnected Youth Forum

On March 27, 2007, DCAYA brought together young people, youth-engaged organizations and key leaders in the field to determine how to better support disconnected youth in the District. The forum, entitled Voice, Vision, Change: Coming Together to Meet the Needs of Disconnected Youth in the District of Columbia, was a great success.

Goals of the forum were two-fold:

1. Gauge where we are as a city in meeting the needs of our disconnected youth, and
2. Determine what it will take to maximize and leverage our current resources to ensure that our most vulnerable youth have access to the developmental supports they need to thrive.

Co-sponsors of the forum included: The Executive Office of the Mayor, the DC Children’s Trust Fund, the Kid’s Count Collaborative (A Project of the DC Children’s Trust Fund), and the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect.

The event, which featured Mayor Fenty as keynote speaker, was a triumph both for DCAYA and the youth participants. Mayor Fenty agreed to meet with young people who had attended the forum and to allow them to deliver the recommendations to him in person. The ensuing meeting was also successful, prompting the Mayor to arrange a follow-up meeting with the youth in September.

In addition to the meetings with Mayor Fenty, as a result of the forum DCAYA was invited to sit on the Mayor's Reconnecting Disconnected Youth Steering Committee. DCAYA now works with the chair of that committee and the Mayor's staff to continue to build strategies for disconnected youth as well as participates in the Best Practices Subcommittee of the Steering Committee.

Photos:

Related documents:
Flyer
Recommendations

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Forum on Mayor Fenty's Proposed School Takeover

On February 6th, 2007, DCAYA hosted a forum entitled: The "Proposed Mayoral Takeover of DC Public Schools: A Dialogue." The well-attended forum served as a community-based discussion about the possible shift in control of the school system and what it means for DC youth.

Panelists included:

Kim Y. Jones, Executive Director of Advocates for Justice and Education
Iris J. Toyer, Esq. Project Director, DC Public School Partnerships, Washington Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Mary M. Levy, Esq. Project Director, Public Education Reform Washington Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters
Victor Reinoso, Deputy Mayor of Education, District of Columbia
Jeff Smith, then DC School Board member for Ward 1 and currently Director of nonprofit DC Voice

Related Documents:
Flyer
Proposed legislation

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Press Conference to Protest Anti-Youth Emergency Crime Legislation

On July 31st, DCAYA held an evening press conference on the steps of the District Building to speak out against a new 10 PM curfew for youth just hours before the curfew was to take effect. Youth and youth-engaged organizations spoke out about their concerns that the recently-passed emergency crime package (which included the 10 PM curfew for young people 16 and under) focused primarily on youth, when adults commit the majority of violent crimes in the District. DCAYA representatives expressed concern that DC is not making the necessary investments in youth job training, skills-building, or education. DCAYA was represented at the press conference by its Executive Director; several youth leaders; parents; and the Executive Directors of the National Center for Children and Families, Heads Up, Martha’s Table, Metro TeenAIDS, East Capitol Center for Change, and the Latin American Youth Center.