Truman School of Government and Public Affairs

The mission of the Youth Community Coalition (YC2) in Columbia, Missouri is “to help youth develop into productive and self-sufficient citizens by working together to decrease substance abuse and promote healthy behaviors.”   The Coalition brings together more than 50 agencies within the local community that are engaged in services that address youth health and risky behaviors, as well as those that conduct programming and activities for youth.  In 2015, the Coalition decided to assist in the development of community-level coalitions in 5 small Boone County communities (Ashland, Centralia, Hallsville, Harrisburg, and Sturgeon). IPP serves as the evaluator and data manager for YC2.

Update

IPP completed a series of Developmental Assets Profile (DAP) reports for YC2 during the summer of 2020. These DAP reports were formulated for select communities throughout Boone County Missouri and are based on data from the Search Institute’s survey, Developmental Assets Profile (DAP), which focuses on understanding the strengths and supports (or “Developmental Assets”) that young people experience in their lives. IPP also completed a Community Readiness Assessment (CRA) of select YC2 communities throughout Boone County. This Community Readiness Assessment is used to help determine the readiness of YC2 communities to address various behavioral health issues among youth. IPP will also complete an annual member survey of YC2 that assesses how well YC2 partners understand the objectives of the organization and how involved community members are with YC2. Both the CRA and annual member survey reports will be completed in December 2020 and early January 2021.

Impact

The Institute of Public Policy (IPP) conducted two primary assessments: a Community Readiness Assessment and an Annual Assessment. YC2 contracted IPP to complete an assessment to determine the current level of readiness of each of the five communities and to show the progress over time in an annual Community Readiness Assessment.  IPP also conducts a second annual assessment in each of the five identified communities.  The Institute has identified a list of indicators to assess the activities of local communities and conducts Annual Assessments based on these indicators.