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Colorado 9to25 is a collective, action-oriented group of Colorado youth and adults working in partnership to align efforts and achieve positive outcomes for all youth, ages 9-25, so they can reach their full potential.
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Greetings,


As you know Colorado 9to25 and the Statewide Youth Development Plan held a joint “Council” on youth development open house on April 23rd.  We know some of you had previous engagements and we missed you. Here is an update on the discussion and progress at that meeting.

One big announcement and discussion point was CO9to25 and the Statewide Youth Development Plan Committee moving forward with uniting and aligning our work through Recommendation #1 of the Statewide Youth Development plan to create the Colorado 9to25 Council on Youth Development.
Mike Johnson and Nkem Nwankwo, Co-Chairs of GPS (CO9to25's steering committee), share the exciting news of the merger between Colorado 9to25 and the Statewide Youth Development Plan. 

“Merging the work of CO9to25 with the State Youth Development Plan feels like an amazing step forward for both groups.  Bringing the passion, enthusiasm and expertise of 9to25 together with the structure, buy-in and reach of the plan provides the Colorado Youth Development Council with capacity to make real change in the way our state works with and for young people.  I’m stoked to be involved!”

 Cody Buchanan

Action Team Updates

We discussed CO9to25’s process over the last year and areas you helped to identify as places to improve CO9to25.  We discussed the status of Action Teams, summarized below.
 

Action Team

Status

Next Steps
Youth Bill of Rights Completed Project Spread the word and integrate into your work, school, community! Download here: http://co9to25.org/action-teams/youth-bill-of-rights/

Youth Endorsement System

Criteria has been developed for endorsing youth-serving organizations. In partnership with CO Dept. of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) and CO Dept. of Human Services (CDHS), a rubric was developed based on the criteria. Rubric is available for download here.

Implementation of the system is on hold due to funding and is direct-programming requiring significant oversight.  

Partnering with CDPHE/CDHS to develop interactive website for rubric. Promote rubric as resource for organizations.  Explore partner organizations to support this program.

Youth Engagement Standards

Completed Project

Spread the word and utilize in your work, school, community!

http://co9to25.org/youth-engagement-standards/

Youth Summit

The Youth Summit has been a highly successful direct program and is sustainable outside of CO9to25. You can see the report from the 2015 summit here.   As CO9to25 is focusing more on systems work, the youth summit will no longer be a direct project of CO9to25. CO9to25 will remain partners of the summit.

The Youth Summit will be spearheaded by Kaiser Permanente who has the resources to commit to the work and has always taken a lead on the summit.  

Policy

The Policy team had a win in supporting the Juvenile Assessment Center in integrating Positive Youth Development (PYD) into their organizational policies. This work is important and valued by CO9to25 and all members are encouraged to adopt and integrate policies within their organizations that promote a PYD approach.

This team is on hold until there is more strategic direction and capacity for this work.

GPS will take on the responsibility of legislative policy and if necessary will create a sub-committee to respond to emerging legislative issues.

Training and Technical Assistance

System design was completed and a partner agency exists - with funding, to pilot the system across the state.

CDPHE is excited and currently has resources to take this responsibility.

Social Media

 

This team has been a really cohesive, productive team and there is a need for ongoing efforts.

Team will continue in current scope of work with updating website and social media and will likely take on additional roles soon!

Gaps Analysis

This team has been influential in conducting the annual CO9to25 surveys the last two years. Here are links to the 2014 Survey Report and a draft of 2015 Survey Report.

With the merger of the Statewide Youth Development Plan and CO9to25 this team will take on a new form and will engage new stakeholders.

Since the Statewide Youth Development Plan is housed in CDHS they will convene a team.
“I am even more excited now about the work and everyone's collaboration coming together to make sure all youth from Colorado are safe, healthy, educated, connected and contributing.”
Alejandra Venzor

Council Structure

At the meeting, we discussed the new structure including the Council and Roles and Responsibilities.  Watch this narrated prezi to learn what was presented. 

Statewide Youth Development Plan

We then held an "Open House" where we got to know some of the Statewide Youth Development Plan stakeholders and discussed a few of the recommendations next steps.

You can read the feedback from our discussion here

"I'm really excited about the momentum and energy around fully merging Colorado's Youth Development Plan with the work and infrastructure of CO9to25! It just makes sense. We are one step closer to fully realizing a comprehensive youth system in Colorado!" 
Anne-Marie Braga

Next Steps

Next steps over the summer for GPS include two retreats planned over the next two months to discuss the following:

  • Core values

  • Finalize the Charter

  • Updating the Logic Model/ Strategic plan

  • Finalize a Recruitment plan for The Council and GPS

  • Identifying the work of the subcommittees

  • Discuss data and evaluation

  • Schedule upcoming Council meetings

  Next Steps for you:  

Thoughts, Questions, Concerns?

At the meeting, people shared that they were thankful for the thoughtful, strategic thinking that CO9to25 leadership has been doing and the group was excited and hopeful about the merge between CO9to25 and the Statewide Youth Development Plan as it provides more focus, structure, and resources to the efforts. There was time for people to ask questions and share concerns and the main concerns were around communicating this information to those who were not at the meeting and continuing to communicate decisions and timelines as they are determined by GPS determines during the next few months.

We hope this email has helped to communicate updates and decisions to those who were unable to make it on April 23rd. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with thoughts, questions, or concerns. You can contact Ana Soler (ana@civiccanopy.org), Meghan Chaney (meghan@civiccanopy.org) or Pearl Bell (pearl.bell@state.co.us).


We appreciate your continued patience and guidance as we work to serve you. Thank you for all your hard work with CO9to25.
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