Priorities for Candidates

Platform for Philadelphia's Future:
Making a Difference for Children, Youth and Communities

"And how are the children?" The traditional greeting of the African Masai tribe expresses concern for the health and well-being of its youngest members. It underscores the vital role that children play in Masai society, and the value placed on their safety.

And how are Philadelphia's children? Are our city's streets safe for them to play and walk on? Are our schools enabling them to learn and thrive? Are we doing all we can to ensure that they are born healthy, and continue to develop through to adulthood? Are parents and caregivers receiving the supports needed to raise their children well? Are we, like the Masai, placing such a high value on their safety, security and well-being that we see them as inextricably linked with health and vitality of our city?

Philadelphia's Children's Commission was established by Executive Order in 2000, to improve the well-being and success of Philadelphia's children and youth by acting as a champion for children, providing leadership, engaging high level stakeholders, expanding private sector leadership and developing long-term recommendations for city government and its partners. The Commission must span individual adminstrations in order to assure the building and sustaining of youth success as a city priority and ensure shared accountability across the City's public and private sectors for the safety, security and well-being of its children and youth.

During this election season, the Commission presents this 5-point "Children's Platform," articulating a vision of hope for ALL of our city's children, with particular emphasis on improving outcomes for our most vulnerable youth. We urge all Mayoral candidates to adopt this platform, and commit themselves to supporting, sustaining and increasing the policies and investments needed to ensure that Philadelphia is and can continue to be a great city in which to grow up and raise children. We urge voters to relentlessly ask the candidates about their positions on these issues, and to ensure that children occupy a vital part of their platform for Philadelphia's future.

The Children's Platform - Ensure that every child in Philadelphia:

I. Lives in a safe, stable and supportive family with parents and caregivers who have necessary supports, learning opportunities and tools;
II. Is born healthy, thrives developmentally and is ready for school by sustaining and expanding investments in early childhood;
III. Remains safe, thrives socially and emotionally and achieves increased academic success by investing in after-school opportunities for all youth;
IV. Grows up with high expectations for success and a genuine vision of becoming a productive, contributing member of the community by reducing youth homicides, victimization, and incarceration;
V. Is effectively served by wisely using data to guide policies, investments and a strategic focus on the most vulnerable populations.

Working together, we can create a day when asked "And how are Philadelphia's children?" we can emphatically and truthfully respond, "ALL the children are well."

I. Ensure that every child in Philadelphia lives in safe, stable and supportive families with parents and caregivers who have necessary supports, learning opportunities and tools;

A safe, stable family, and lifelong connections to caring adults are the most important things a child needs in his/her life. Supporting strong families and strong communities is the foundation for all of the City's efforts on behalf of its children and youth. The Commission's support and involvement in family and community initiatives will be critical to their effectiveness. A number of vital initiatives are underway including:

• Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. Between 2000 and 2005, 3,811 children were homeless each year. The Ten Year Plan is a comprehensive approach to address and solve the problems leading to homelessness.
• Blue Ribbon Commission on Children's Behavioral Health has provided a constructive and comprehensive blueprint for improving behavioral health services for children, youth and their families through its Philadelphia Compact.
• The Child Welfare Panel is currently engaged in a comprehensive review of the city's response to abused and neglected children and their families. The next Mayor should use the Children's Commission as a vehicle to monitor and ensure that the recommendations of this panel are implemented effectively for the protection of the city's most vulnerable children and their families.
• The Neighborhood Transformation Initiative provides a continued plan of action for building and sustaining more economically viable and stable communities for Philadelphia's families.

We call upon the next Mayor to ensure that every child is connected to a stable family and caring adults and lives safely in a secure home by working with the Children's Commission and other partners to fully implement the recommendations of these initiatives.

II. Ensure that all of Philadelphia’s children are born healthy, thrive developmentally and are ready for school by sustaining and expanding investments in early childhood

Philadelphia has developed and invested in vital early childhood initiatives over the last several years, including:

• Strategic immunization efforts, and LAST, the collaborative lead abatement initiative
• Research based parenting programs including the Nurse Family Partnership, and Cradle to Classroom initiative
• Expanded access to early intervention and early education through the Health, Behavioral Health systems and schools,
• Creation of a Facilities Fund to provide grants and loans to child care facilities.

As a result of these investments, the Report Card on Child Well Being and other data demonstrate increases in number of children with age appropriate immunizations, lead testing and grade promotion for first grade students, with corresponding decreases in incidences of lead poisoning and child abuse. These improvements represent targeted investments in strategies that are constantly monitored for impacts.

In the face of this outstanding success, we call upon the next Mayor to continue to support and to increase these investments.

III. Ensure that all of Philadelphia's children remain safe, thrive socially and emotionally and achieve increased academic success by investing in after-school opportunities for all youth.

The research on the importance of out-of-school time and the costs of school failure is indisputable. Philadelphia is developing a continuum of city- and system-wide strategies to support students during the school day, engage youth in safe, supervised activities after school, and to re-engage its older youth who have left school without graduating in new opportunities for success including the:

• Extensive integration of behavioral and physical health services as recommended by the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Children's Behavioral Health
• Development of Beacon, Extended School Day, Recreation center and other after school programs in distressed schools and neighborhoods serving more than 50,000 youth annually.
• Expansion of truancy and delinquency prevention programs
• The Disconnected Youth Initiative and Achieving Independence Centers in partnership with the William Penn Foundation and the Philadelphia Youth Network to support the transition of youth leaving foster care, group home and secure care facilities.

Since Philadelphia began these initiatives in 2000, crimes committed by juveniles during the after school hours (from 3:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.) have fallen by more than 19%. In addition, over a three-year period, Philadelphia’s after-school programs helped to save over $30 million dollars in child welfare and child care service costs alone. This did not include likely savings to the court system and other government agencies from these investments. Parents and all voters strongly support these efforts.

We call upon the next Mayor to ensure that every child will have safe places to spend out-of-school time where they can be exposed to a range of enriching activities and opportunities for their behavioral and physical health, social, and recreational needs to be met by prioritizing and sustaining the City’s investment in these programs.

IV. Ensure that all of Philadelphia's children grow up with high expectations for success and a genuine vision of becoming productive, contributing members of the community by reducing youth homicides, victimization, and incarceration.

As is true in most urban areas in the United States, life can be dangerous for young people in Philadelphia. The 2006 Children’s Report Card shows that in 2005:

• Nearly 4,450 children under 18 were victims of serious crimes.
• Twenty-four children were murdered and 211 children suffered gunshot wounds.
• Over 3,900 juveniles were arrested for major crimes;

Philadelphians are rightly concerned about these troubling statistics, and the city has moved forward with promising strategies to combat these trends.

• The evaluation of the city's nationally recognized Youth Violence Reduction Partnership (YVRP) indicates that it has reduced youth and young adult homicides in several of the City’s most dangerous neighborhoods by 30%-60%.
• Teen Centers located in selected Department of Recreation Centers provide an anchor point in high risk neighborhoods where youth receive a range of services and supports.
• The Adolescent Youth Violence Reduction Program (AVRP) identifies and engages younger (ages 10-15) youth who are most likely to become repeat offenders or victims of violence through a combination of intensive anti-violence programs, monitoring and mentoring provided by community "youth workers"
• The Aftercare Improvement Project, a partnership of the City, the University of Penn, the DA’s Office, Family Court, Juvenile Probation, the school district and state government provides positive supports to juvenile offenders re-entering the community after a period of confinement
• Services for School Drop-outs - partnerships with Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation (PWDC) and the Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN) support increased employment and training opportunities for out-of-school youth.

Philadelphia voters are concerned about the escalation of violence in our city and will insist that the next mayor have a workable, comprehensive approach to these issues. We call upon the next Mayor to build such a plan by making the protection of children and the prevention of crime and violence by young people a major priority. This must include substantial investments in proven programs designed to prevent youth violence before it starts and turn around the lives of youth at-risk.

V. Ensure that every child in Philadelphia is effectively served by wisely using data to guide policies and investments and strategic focus on the most vulnerable populations.

Philadelphia leads the nation in its commitment to develop and use data to guide the direction, development and accountability of its children and youth systems. Successful examples of ways in which Philadelphia has implemented data in order to make a real difference in the lives of its children include:

• Children's Report Cards and the Community Report Cards provide unparalleled data indicators and trends that define the 'state of the City's children, youth and young adults,' neighborhood-by-neighborhood.
• The Children's Budget compares expenditures against trends and needs.
• DSS CARES - an integrated data system that, when fully developed, will allow the merging of data sets across City, Court and School District systems to provide the pipeline for much of the data collected for the Report Cards and many other analyses and reports that would not otherwise be available.

We call upon Philadelphia's next mayor to continue to support and expand the use of data to guide policies and investments for children. Furthermore, the Children's Commission can work with the next administration to learn how to use data more effectively in real time to develop rapid-response approaches to emerging challenges and opportunities.

Follow along here as youth develop their own priorities for the Mayoral candidates.