Current Projects

City of Life Stakeholder Report

This has been a very productive year as we find more initiatives and partnerships to continue to leverage existing community resources to assist at-risk kids with a focus on youth aging out of foster care.

Projects in Place

WorkOut - City of Life (COL) developed a partnership between Workforce Central Florida and Orange County Community Center to prepare foster care youth for re-entry into the work force – soft skills training – hard skills training – GED completion. Value at $150,000 over 18 months.

Educational Fair designed to “Light the Spark” for the 135 or so motivated young people to open their eyes to the opportunity of staying the course and getting an education. This was in partnership with Family Services of Metro Orlando.

Career Fair designed to showcase the myriad of job and training opportunities in our community that are available to foster youth as they try to build careers – This also was done under the auspices of Family Services of Metro Orlando.

Community Strategic Plan in collaboration with community organizations is almost complete. From this process came the idea of establishing a lifeline of support information for foster care youth through “211” – this initiative is now in place at United Way and managed by the Community Service Center.

“Hands Up” program at Westgate Resorts and Starwood’s Resorts where the company will coordinate housing near by and support the youth with adult mentors and life skills training. We have community resources committed to the success of this program and other companies and labor unions interested in following.

Housing is available at two group homes for youth that have aged out of the system – through our partnerships we are able to offer training and education to get these kids going again.

Banking is now available for foster care youth as a result of a connection made by City of Life. These kids can learn budgeting skills before they become adults.

The Future

Mentoring is one of our priorities. We are currently working as partners in the Orlando Mentoring Roundtable to build community-based resources that will provide properly screened and trained adult role models for the area’s at-risk youth.

The State of Florida has funding to train for the building trades. The City of Life will work at connecting youth to opportunity.

Connected By 25, associated with the Casey Foundations and the Eckerd Foundation has been retained by City of Life via a grant from the Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation. They are currently doing an Environmental Scan that is the first step in a process that can bring new resources and their successful program that is designed to help develop independent living skills for youth in the process of aging out of the foster care system.

Development of a One-Stop Center for foster youth to secure support and services has been in preliminary development stages in partnership with Valencia Community College and Family Services of Metro Orlando. This facility will be built in 2009 on the West Campus of Valencia. Plans are already in place to replicate this facility at other Valencia campuses throughout Central Florida. The services offered will be determined via research currently being conducted among all the constituents of the facility; foster youth, foster parents, case workers and others involved in the system.

Creating a program that will provide Educational Liaisons at each high school in Central Florida to serve as advocates for the foster children enrolled there. This is a community-wide initiative designed to provide support services to the foster youth as they seek and strive to complete their educations.

Alternative post-high school educational opportunities are also being developed via partnering with providers of vocational, education options, corporate training programs and mentoring. It is very important to let foster youth know that an academic education is not the only path to a successful adulthood.

We are working with the State Attorney to help divert troubled at-risk youth from the criminal justice system so they can receive proper support from community resources before they get off the proper path.

Our Biggest Accomplishment has been the building of a partnership network that leverages existing resources and executes new programs on a very cost effective basis. We have been convening monthly meetings with all the major groups that operate in the foster care bandwidth to create and implement at community-wide Strategic Plan dealing with this issue. We help generate “business like” solutions to a social service process. City of Life communicates and coordinates – our partners provide solutions.

We know “It takes a Village” to get it done and we understand financial resources are precious, and we operate in that spirit. Our budget is under $100,000 in 2008 and is intended to stay at a very low out-of-pocket level for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for your continuing support – we remain focused on leveraging existing community resources and simply connecting the dots.