What does the Commission do?

The role and responsibility of the local Commission includes:

1. Advise Board of County Commissioners on children, youth and family policies;
   
   
2. Community Mobilization:

a. Advocate for local support and involvement in current issues;

b. Create a partnership of community members and professionals working together to improve the lives of children and families;

c. Facilitate and support locally coordinated comprehensive planning for all children ages 0 to 18 and their families. The plan (*pdf file) must address certain issues, such as reducing the number of children who are abused or neglected, increasing the number of children entering school ready to learn and decreasing the number of eighth graders using alcohol, tobacco or drugs.

d. Gather and evaluate information and data to measure progress achieving our goals

3. Coordinate programs – Build and support collaborations and service integration to bring together local resources with similar goals and outcomes in order to impact service delivery and provision.

a. provide technical assistance, develop resources, and facilitate community engagement

b. make recommendations for funding of local programs with solid outcomes. Requests for proposals, and collaborative contracting, are vehicles for funding appropriate programs.

See: Board and staff members

Community Priorities

1. Child abuse prevention
2. Increase the number of childcare slots and quality childcare options
3. Drug and alcohol prevention, education and treatment;
4. Positive youth development;
5. Reduce juvenile crime through prevention efforts and provide treatment to youth already in the system.
6. Provide intervention to middle and high school students that are identified as "acting out" by school counselors, juvenile department and other local sources.

See: Resources for more information

*pdf files on this page require Adobe Reader to view. Free download: