Commission on Children, Youth & Families
Vision Statement
The Commission on Children, Youth and Families envisions a City of Little Rock that respects and supports the belief that all families can be
safe, nurturing, self-determining, drug-free and violence-free environments. Children will be provided the essentials of health,
stability, education, and a belief in themselves that they can grow and develop into caring, contributing adults.
To this end, the Commission will act in advising and promoting comprehensive and holistic ways that reach out to those families and
children that are most at risk of losing one or more of these essentials. The need for programs addressing those needs will be
assessed honestly and factually. At-risk children and families face a myriad of problems needing a systems approach. The Commission
acknowledges that this requires the full partnership of City and government agencies, local educational agencies, public and private
business community, and dedicated organizations working directly in the neighborhoods.
In its advisory role to the City of Little Rock Board of Directors, the Commission sees ideas, information, communication, and solutions
flowing freely between itself and the Little Rock community, other communities, the Commissioners themselves, and the Board of Directors
and City Staff. In maintaining and encouraging an open policy of listening and exchange, the Commission believes it will best understand
the continuing and emerging needs of the citizens of Little Rock
The History Behind the Little Rock Commission on Children, Youth and Families
The Little Rock Commission on Children, Youth and Families was established by ordinance on April 2, 2002. With a desire to continue in the spirit of FUTURE-Little Rock, and to enhance the policy and priority-setting process for the Prevention, Intervention and Treatment funds, the new commission replaced the Little Rock Commission on Domestic Violence, the Little Rock Commission on Education, the Little Rock Task Force for Youth, and the PIT Advisory Committee. The City's Department of Community Programs provided administrative and technical support to each of those entities, and will continue to provide this support to the new Commission on Children, Youth and Families.
The Vision LR process of 2002 - also a volunteer citizen-based project - picked up ten years later where FUTURE-Little Rock had delivered the initial concepts of prevention, intervention, and treatment. Vision LR endorsed and affirmed the City's direction and commitment to enhance and expand PIT programs, giving it high priority among the 33 identified goals for Little Rock in the next ten years.
In 1991, during the Future-Little Rock planning process, "safety" was mentioned most often as the greatest problem in a Little Rock citizen's public opinion poll-twice as often as the next greatest problem. From this, Little Rock recognized that short-term, enhanced law enforcement was critical to a safe city, but long term intervention would pay greater dividends and require aggressive, consistent interventions in neighborhoods, particularly with youth. With that information gathered, the City of Little Rock launched the Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment (PIT) initiative.
Initially, there were just a few programs funded from, but they all reflected these common principles, uniting them in a common purpose, and those principles continue to be at the core of all PIT programs today:
- Collaborations with major public and private sector institutions, community-based organizations and citizen groups are important.
- A dedicated group with human social capitol programming as its mission
- Citizen involvement with boards and groups
- Targeted programming and subsequent service contracts based upon research and best practices for youth development
In the recent past, between 45 and 60 different contracts for Prevention, Intervention and Treatment programs have been funded by the City of Little Rock each year, investing more than $3.5 million yearly for the benefit of a wide variety of citizens needing these services. The amount funded on a year-to-year basis will vary depending on the economic climate, but the commitment to the citizens to provide these programs is well established and has proven itself a wise investment. In the ten years between 1993 and 2004, juvenile arrests overall have decreased by 62%, and by 75% for juvenile arrests for violent crimes.