Three youth-oriented partnerships received the prestigious Innovations in State and Local Government Award last month for their work in wedding government, business, and nonprofit interests in the service of children.
The awards to the K-Six Intervention Partnership in Fresno County, Calif., the New Jersey School-Based Youth Service Program, and the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network were 3 of the 10 granted by the Ford Foundation and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in the program’s sixth year.
Each recipient receives a $100,000 prize.
In Fresno, the school district, the county and city governments, the business community, the courts, parents, and social-services agencies have joined forces to provide tutoring, cultural programs, mentoring, parenting and household-management workshops, and recreation programs for underprivileged elementary-school students.
Since 1985, the program has served 10,900 children. Referrals for misbehavior have dropped by 70 percent. Parent-initiated contacts with the schools have increased from two per year to two per month, and unexcused absences have plummeted by 40 percent, officials say.
In New Jersey, a one-stop approach to education, health, and social services for at-risk teenagers has served 19,000 since 1988 by linking the state government with the New Jersey Education Association, four medical schools and hospitals, three nonprofit service agencies, six mental-health agencies, a private industry council, and the Urban League.
In Philadelphia, business and community leaders, the police, and area artists have joined to give vandals with misdirected artistic talents visual-arts training and has put them to work designing mural-art projects throughout the city.
The National Alliance of Business this month named the General Telephone and Electronics Corporation’s education initiative in Tampa, Fla., as its business-education partnership of the year.
Established in 1989 as an alternative to traditional partnerships, the program capitalizes on business’s strengths in management to help the Hillsborough County school district decentralize control.
G.T.E. employees provide management training to principals, teachers, and administrators, and have enabled district staff members to function as staff-development trainers.
The corporation has established a $25,000 incentive award for schools instituting innovative management and teaching techniques.
All told, 150 G.T.E. employees logged 1,500 hours of volunteer work last year. --J.W.
