Education and Community Resilience

1) Exploring the Community Impact of Long-term Investment in Children and Families (Hanson)  The Children's Trust is a dedicated source of revenue established by voter referendum, with the mission to partner with the community to plan, advocate for and fund strategic investments that improve the lives of all children and families in Miami-Dade County. Our 33 member board of directors represents all the major child and youth serving entities and envisions a community that works together to provide the essential foundations to enable children to achieve their full potential. Since 2004, The Trust has invested an average of $100 million annually in community prevention programs for children, youth and families. A recent retrospective look at long-term community indicator trends in 4th grade reading levels, middle school physical activity levels and substance use, teen birth and arrest rates, youth homicides and graduation rates will be discussed in terms of the many transformational investments, policies and collaborations that have taken place over the last decade to support improvements. However, indicators also give us focus and direction to the continuing efforts needed to reach our vision of all children achieving their full potential.