Ready by 21, developed by the Forum for Youth Investment, helps mobilize communities to improve the odds for children and youth.
Ready by 21® Affinity Groups
The Forum for Youth Investment connects with the directors, chairs and members of state and local cross-agency coordinating bodies in more than 20 states across the country. These coordinating bodies include children's cabinets, commissions or councils and are systematically changing the fragmented and ineffective way states typically do business for children and youth.
Typically, these bodies are made up of heads of state agencies with child and youth-serving programs, who meet on a regular basis with the collective goal of coordinating services, developing a common set of outcomes, and collaboratively developing and implementing plans to foster the well-being of young people. The coordinating body model provides a long-term and sustainable structure for ensuring that young people are physically and emotionally healthy, academically successful, civically engaged and prepared to enter the workforce. There are currently 21 states that have a coordinating body for children and youth.
It is important that they strive to better align and coordinate the work of their child and youth serving agencies. As a part of this network, these well-positioned state leaders receive technical assistance both in person, by phone and web. Participants in the network get the opportunity to interact with peers engaged in this same unique role in states across the country, sharing tips and best practices and working through solutions to common problems. The Forum and the Ready by 21® National Partners have created resources and tools for these leaders to use to advance their work. These coordinating bodies have the potential to change the way their states do business.
Want to learn more about Children's Cabinets? Thinking of creating a new one? Want to make an existing one even better? Check out our State Children's Cabinets and Councils Series!
Related News and Publications
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New Mexico: Children’s Cabinet Report Card: Growing Our Future, Together 2008 |
The Children’s Cabinet is a working group of the 14 departments that work closely on children’s issues. These departments include a wide range of state agencies, such as: Youth and Families Department, Human Service Department, Department of Health, Public Education, Higher Education, Corrections, Workforce Solutions, and even Economic Development and Cultural Affairs. |
09/01/2008 |
| Forum Works with State Teams Across the Country to Improve Youth Policy |
The Forum, along with the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, recently completed the Fourth Annual Youth Policy Institute. The Institutes bring together state policymakers and are designed to help state governments obtain better outcomes from their youth policies and programs. |
06/19/2008 | |
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Kentucky: Youth Development Coordinating Council, Strategic Plan 2008-10 |
The Kentucky Youth Development Coordinating Council was created to allow all youth serving state programs to work together to use existing resources more efficiently and improve services and outcomes with focus on: coordination, accountability, quality, and opportunities. |
05/19/2008 |
| Forum Testifies For Tennessee Children and Youth Resource Mapping Bill |
As a part of the Ready by 21 national partnership agreement between the Forum and the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Forum agrees to support state legislators as they work to implement a Ready by 21 approach in their states. |
04/14/2008 | |
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2008 Directory of State Children's Cabinets and Councils - June 2008 Update |
The 2008 Directory of State Children’s Cabinets and Councils provides at-a-glance responses to basic but important questions: which states have children’s cabinets and councils? Who is involved in them? What do they do? The guide provides summaries of interviews done with children’s cabinet and council directors in the latter half of 2007. |
12/01/2007 |
| 2007 Roundtable on Children's Cabinets and Councils |
Representatives from 11 states attended the Roundtable in April of 2007 in Des Moines, Iowa to share their experiences, ideas and challenges. Several special guests, including the Governor of Iowa, Chet Culver, the First Lady of Iowa, Mari Culver and Patricia Kempthorne, the Former First Lady of Idaho, joined the event as well. |
04/01/2007 | |
| Audio-Conference for Governor's Policy Advisors |
Many policy advisors, chiefs of staff and even some Lt. Governors got on the phone to learn more as they think about shaping their work on children and youth. |
03/07/2007 | |
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Adding It Up -- Brochure, Rationale and Guide to Mapping Public Resources for Children, Youth & Families |
Brochure: Offering the highlights of what a CYF resource map can do, and why a state or community might benefit from one, the brochure can help you make the case and spread the word about your efforts. |
12/01/2006 |
| Ready by 21 Change Maker Update: State-Level Children's Cabinets and Commissions Come Into Their Own |
In March 2006 the Forum along with NGA and the New Mexico Children's Cabinet hosted the second annual Children's Cabinet Roundtable in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Eight states participated in the Roundtable and discussed their progress in coordinating resources, collaborating on strategies, and convening key players in improving outcomes for children and youth. |
04/10/2006 | |
| Alignment of Results Accountability (RBA) and Ready by 21 |
This document represents the thinking of Mark Friedman's Fiscal Policy Studies Institute and The Forum for Youth Investment on the intersection and compatibility of the respective frameworks of Results Accountability Talk to Action and Ready by 21. The purpose of this analysis is to demonstrate the relationships between these two bodies of work. |
03/20/2006 |