November 2002

Hello, and welcome to the November issue of the National Civic League's email newsletter. This monthly communication will provide information on the activities and accomplishments of NCL and links to information on a variety of topics relating to NCL's mission.

The National Civic League is a 108-year-old non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to strengthening citizen democracy by transforming democratic institutions. NCL accomplishes its mission through technical assistance, training, publishing, research, and the All-America City Award. The National Civic League is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and has an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, call 303-571-4343 or visit www.ncl.org.

This newsletter is by subscription only! You are receiving this newsletter because you requested a subscription on our website or because you are an NCL member. If you would like to unsubscribe, look for instructions at the end of this newsletter.

1. 2002 National Conference on Governance a Success
2. NCL Board of Directors Approves 8th Edition of Model City Charter
3. Federal-Community Partnerships Updates
4. Community Services Updates
5. Is Your Community an All-America City?
   
6. ANR: Things You Can Do For Your Community
7. Civic Index Feature

The National Civic League was founded in 1894 by, among others, Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, Marshall Field, and Frederick Law Olmsted, when more than 100 educators, journalists, business leaders, and policy makers met in Philadelphia to discuss the future of American cities. The gathering was organized in response to widespread municipal government corruption and served as a nationwide call to "raise the popular standards of political morality."

More than one hundred years later, the National Civic League is still working to answer this call. On November 15-16th, the National Civic League convened leading political reform innovators from around the country to discuss critical issues such as youth civic engagement, technology in campaigns, free air time for political candidates, and how campaign finance reform relates to issues of race.

This year's conference was abundant with critical thought concerning political reform issues. It reiterated our responsibility to carry on the political reform dialogue in our communities and to consistently look for new ways to address existing challenges. Most important, it reminded us all why we continue to pursue our vision of better tomorrows. Visit the National Conference on Governance web page for summary of the event, pictures, and additional information.

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The National Civic League's Board of Directors unanimously approved the 8th Edition of the Model City Charter for publication at the 108th National Conference on Governance in Washington, D.C. this past week. The 8th edition will be available to the public in January of 2003.

Since 1915, the Model has endorsed the council-manager form of government and recognized the value of an independent city executive running the day-to-day operations of the city. Over 89 million Americans live in communities operating under council-manager government.

In recognition of the growing complexity of issues facing local governments, the 8th edition of the Model directly addresses the modern realities that local governments face such as: regional cooperation; citizen participation; strong professional and political leadership; campaign finance; performance and outcome oriented delivery of service; and means to increase voter turnout.

The model charter is a tool for all those engaged in efforts to improve the structure and procedures of local government and thus to increase its effectiveness. Each successive edition has been the work of a committee of distinguished individuals with wide knowledge and experience in municipal government.

Visit the Model City Charter web page for more information, or read the full text of the press release online.

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Safe Start Training and Technical Assistance Project

Safe Start is a national demonstration project for 11 tribal, rural, and urban sites funded by the US Dept. of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (USDOJ OJJDP). Its purpose is to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence by utilizing a cross-systems approach to ensure lasting, systemic change. Recent site visits have created the opportunity for the sites to share their successes and challenges, and have allowed NCL staff to meet with collaborative members, participate in council and planning meetings, and get tours of the various communities in which services are being provided. FCP staff will be examining cross-cutting issues that sites are facing, and work with each individual site to create a training and technical assistance plan.

Systems Improvement Training and Technical Assistance Project (SITTAP)

In partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL), FCP staff continue to provide a variety of systems reform-related consulting services to the Safe Kids/Safe Streets initiative. Examples of the systems reform tools currently in use include Cultural Competence Assessment and Training by NCL and IEL, Developing Parent Leadership through Parents Anonymous and Parent Power, Strategic Planning and Visioning through NCL, Multi-Systems Case Analysis (to identify gaps in human service delivery systems) through the Child Welfare League of America, and Structured-Decision Making (which offers family assessments and maps agency responses) from the Children's Research Center of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. FCP staff continue to serve as Lead Consultants for two of the five Safe Kids/Safe Streets site: Bill Schechter in Burlington, Vermont and Cheryl Cook in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan.

Safe Kids/Safe Streets, Office of Justice Programs

FCP staff continue to coordinate training and technical assistance for this national demonstration project. The Safe Kids/Safe Streets initiative is a five-year federally-funded project in five sites designed to reduce juvenile delinquency through comprehensive, community-wide efforts to break the cycle of violence initiated by child abuse and neglect. Currently, FCP staff are planning the Spring Cluster Meeting, which will be held March 18-21 in Washington, DC and will focus on the application of the SK/SS Initiative with Past, Present & Future, a review of what has been accomplished, what could have been done differently, and how to sustain the SKSS efforts and lessons learned.

In early December, Cheryl Cook will provide a training on Cultural Competence along with the Child Welfare League of America's Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Instrument to the Family and Child Abuse Prevention Center and Lucas County Safe Kids/Safe Streets Initiative in Toledo, OH. This training seeks to assist practitioners in developing a knowledge base to create and support culturally competent family centered practices. Creating a culturally competent practice helps organizations and their professionals create environments where effective services can be delivered that take into consideration cultural norms, values, faith/belief systems and each client's respective community.

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Out-of-School Time Program

The National Civic League's Cheryl Cook will be presenting at the First Annual Conference on Out-of-School Time program in Washington DC. The focus of her presentation will be on technical assistance and capacity building to enhance the dialogue about where community-based organizations can go for assistance and ways to maximize the relationship between technical assistance providers and communities.

This conference is sponsored by the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation. The Trust hopes that this conference will build off the momentum created by the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation signed into law this year. This new law changes the federal government's role in kindergarten-through-grade-12 education by asking America's schools to describe their success in terms of what each student accomplishes. It contains four basic education reform principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on proven teaching methods.

The National Civic League is currently engaged in a year long project with the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust to provide capacity building, training, and technical assistance to twelve community-based organizations located in Southeast and Northeast Washington, DC.

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For over 53 years, the All-America City (AAC) Award has recognized exemplary grassroots community problem-solving and honors communities of all sizes (cities, towns, neighborhoods, counties and regions) that cooperatively tackle challenges and achieve results. A community that teaches the rest of us how to face difficult situations and to meet those challenges in innovative and collaborative ways can become an All-America City.

Several years ago, a study of All-America Cities showed that communities which actively marketed their designations had an increase of new businesses and jobs, tourism, and higher bond ratings. Additionally, the AAC Award reinvigorates a community's sense of pride. Mayor Ken Barela of Fountain, Colorado, a 2002 All-America City, said, "The application process was a community-wide effort we can all be proud of. However, the process of evolving our community into what is being recognized as a national model is what I consider our greatest accomplishment."

For more information, please contact Aleks Humeyumptewa at aac@ncl.org, or visit the All-America City Awards website.

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The Alliance for National Renewal is an intentional community of civic leaders and community builders who collaborate to learn and tell their stories to inspire creative problem solving, imitation, and innovation in pursuit of democratic revitalization and the renewal of civic life. The following ideas are an excerpt from their poster "100 Things You Can Do For Your Community In A New Century".

Things You Can Do For Your Community With Your Neighbors

1. Remove graffiti and replace it with a community-designed mural.
2. Produce a neighborhood citizenís guide to local, state and national issues. Contact the National Issues Forum (www.nifi.org or 800-433-7834) for more information.
3. Organize citizens in your town or city and develop quality of life goals for the community. For information on planning for environmentally friendly local economic growth contact the Northeast Center for Social Issue Studies (www.necsis.org or 802-254-3645).
4. Help your planning board achieve sustainable land development. Contact the Land Use Forum Network (www.landuse.org or 908-459-4418) for more information.
5. Become a Groundwater Guardian Community and protect your communityís drinking water source. For more information, contact The Groundwater Foundation (www.groundwater.org or 800-858-4844).
6. Help low-income communities advocate for themselves and organize to solve critical problems. Contact the Center for Community Change (www.communitychange.org or 202-342-0519).
7. Help kids find a safe place to have fun and to avoid youth violence.
8. Organize a "For the 'Hood" community meeting that focuses on the positive rather than the negative. Encourage neighborhoods to not wait until something "wrong" happens and an "anti-" anything rally must be held. Get together in good times and make a positive change. For ideas on community-drive change, call KaBOOM! (www.kaboom.org or 202-659-0215).

To learn more about the Alliance for National Renewal, visit their website at www.ncl.org/anr.

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Civic Education: Life-Long Learning For Life-Long Civic Participation

Too often, civic education is narrowly defined as a course teaching the mechanisms of representative government offered to secondary school students. Civic education can be, and must be much more than a senior year elective course.

Civic education should have a broader definition than merely knowledge about governmental structures and procedure. It needs to encompass training individuals to participate in the whole of community life; teaching individuals their voting rights is necessary, but so is providing individuals with the wherewithal to form and participate in community organizations, volunteer activities, and non-governmental decision making.

Read more of this article by NCL's Derek Okubo...

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