The Boone County Children's Services Board Presents

vertical timeline with dots displaying progress of the Voices for Collective Impact initiative

Voices for Collective Impact: Youth Violence Prevention

The Boone County Children's Services Board (BCCSB) created a committee known as the High Risk Youth Committee to discuss strategies to address issues related to youth. Initial conversations of this committee focused on bringing the community together to address youth violence.

Youth Violence Prevention Forum

The High Risk Youth Committee hosted a forum in June 2019 to get recommendations from community members on coordinating a conference. Participants were from different backgrounds in our community: health and human services, social services, faith community, law enforcement, school personnel, higher education faculty, community advocates, juvenile justice, and local business. Learn more about the forum.

Youth Focus Groups

Participants from the Youth Violence Prevention Forum expressed the need to have youth voices guide community action planning. The Boone County Community Services Department organized Youth Focus Groups to learn what our teens think are the strengths and weaknesses in our community and what should be done about it. Read the Voices for Collective Impact: Honoring Youth Perspectives report.

Voices for Collective Impact: Youth Violence Prevention Conference

The High Risk Youth Committee coordinated a conference to bring community-wide stakeholders to learn, discuss, and develop an action plan to reduce youth violence and improve the well-being of children in Boone County. Learn more about the conference.

Voices for Collective Impact: Youth Violence Prevention Action Planning

The High Risk Youth Committee is convening ongoing action planning efforts to build out and implement our community's action plan to address youth violence.

Voices for Collective Impact:
Youth Violence Prevention Action Planning

Participants from the Youth Violence Prevention Forum (held in June 2019) identified that a successful conference would include developing an actionable plan to address youth violence. Feedback from the forum was used to develop the primary mission and goals of the action plan:

Mission

Our community's action plan is equitable, trauma-informed, and actionable with input from youth.

Goals

Improved access to mental health services and positive, productive activities for youth and families.

Parents/guardians develop healthy relationships with youth and provide safe environments.

Our community feels safe, entities collaborate, and provides crisis response based on best practices.

Youth achieve their full potential academically, are healthy, and have economic opportunities.

Strategies

The High Risk Youth Committee coordinated the Voices for Collective Impact: Youth Violence Prevention conference where conference participants developed strategies to achieve the four action planning goal statements. Participants voted on the strategies they thought should be prioritized. Learn more about the strategies developed at the conference.

Upcoming Action Planning Meetings

We encourage community members to attend ongoing action planning meetings. Feel free to share the meeting information with those you think should be involved in our community's action plan and implementing strategies to address youth violence.

Please stay tuned for upcoming meetings that will be posted.