Mayor Menino announces new initiative to support Boston’s youth

Mayor Thomas M. Menino today announced the Community Learning Initiative, a multi-department collaboration aimed at helping Boston’s youth reach their full potential.  The initiative seeks to address key factors for healthy development in youth by aligning Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF,) Boston Public Schools and Boston Public Library to coordinate youth services and programming.

“With the Community Learning Initiative, parents are not enrolling their child in a single school, but rather, a set of institutions – a public school, a neighborhood branch library, and a local community center,” Mayor Menino said. “These facilities, their programming, and their personnel are all aligned so that children have a whole network of caring adults at a series of sites throughout their neighborhood.”

The plan calls for:

• Aligning services and opportunities the City provides to make them more user-friendly and easily accessible to children, youth and families;<?xml:namespace prefix =" o" />
• Expanding opportunities available to youth by seeking to partner with the City’s many youth-oriented community organizations and institutions;
• Providing an enriching curriculum that allows all children and youth access to Arts, Character-building, Education and Sports and recreation activities;
• Developing communication materials and vehicles that will make it easy for parents and youth to learn about, sign up for, and participate in Community Learning programs.

First mentioned in his last State of the City Address, the Community Learning Initiative will initially focus on five neighborhoods: Allston, Dorchester, Mattapan, Roslindale and Roxbury.  The Community Learning Initiative will engage five community centers: the Grove Hall, Jackson-Mann, Mildred Avenue, Perkins and Roslindale Community centers.  It will also engage the schools housing the community centers:

• Lee Elementary School
• Burke High School
• Sumner Elementary School
• Bates Elementary School
• Irving Middle School
• Jackson-Mann K-8 School
• Mildred Avenue Middle School

The libraries participating include the Grove Hall, Honan-Allston, Mattapan, Codman Square and Roslindale branches.

The Mayor was joined at the announcement by Boston Centers for Youth & Families Executive Director Daphne Griffin; Boston Public Library President Amy Ryan, Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson and several hundred residents of the communities served by the Community Learning Initiative.