The Integration Initiative: Developing Healthy Hubs

Newark was recently selected as one of just ten cities vying for $80M in blended capital by Living Cities for a novel, integrated, multi-sector initiative of our collective design. The concept that earned Newark’s position as a finalist for some of those funds (which will be distributed among the five winning cities) involved the development of several “healthy hubs” throughout Newark — neighborhoods in which we would develop new school-based health clinics and concentrate ongoing initiatives related to access to fresh and healthy foods, and affordable housing. In partnership with the Prudential Foundation, The Center for Collaborative Change has been selected as the lead coordinator and applicant for the initiative on behalf of the Newark team. Participating organizations presently include those listed here.

Community Needs Assessment: Scan

We are midway through a year-long, citywide needs assessment of people living and working in Newark to determine the city’s most pervasive unmet needs, as well as untapped resources and un-integrated efforts. During the first phase of the project, we looked very broadly at identifying Newark’s critical issues that are insufficiently addressed. We interviewed about 50 key civic and community leaders, surveyed over 500 Newark residents, collected and mapped existing research and data. To see the results of the community survey, click here.

Community Needs Assessment: Understand and Broker Solutions

During the second phase of our Community Needs Assessment, we worked to drill down deeper in certain areas that emerged from the scan phase. Some priority areas where we detected unmet need and feel the Center can be instrumental in finding solutions include: workforce and economic development, individuals’ and organizations’ access to information about available services, and police and community relations. We conducted further research and program development within these priority areas, and will contrinue to gather input from a broader sample of the population through open community forums, citywide surveys (block by block), and focus groups;  and develop collaborative solutions through maximizing resources and talents already here in Newark and also identifying best practices with promise from other cities.

For a complete list of our 2010 Focus Areas and initiatives, click here. To learn more about our work on Community-Police Relations, please click here. If you are interested in sharing your thoughts and experiences, please consider taking our Community-Police Relations Survey.

This project is supported in large part by Living Cities.

Newark Immigrant Civic Education (NICE)

The.Center’s Newark Immigrant Civic Education (NICE) program, with support from the Western Union Foundation, will provide opportunities for several immigrant communities in Newark to learn about local government and how to effect change in their city.

If you are interested in partnering with us to host a NICE series with your community group, please contact farha@newarkchange.org.

Other Projects

Another engagement & empowerment project is the Center’s Youth-to-Youth “Know Your Rights” Training program is designed to promote youth civic engagement and leadership development for Newark youth. With support from the Black United Fund of New Jersey, this project will offer 10 Newark high school students an opportunity to learn about civil rights and community-police relations and then train other Newark youth. Pairs of students will each conduct two trainings, for a total of ten trainings reaching an estimate of 200 Newark youth. By giving Newark youth tools to address the issue of police-youth relations in a constructive, appropriate manner, the “Know Your Rights” training program will empower young people to stand up for their rights, will educate them on how to interact with law enforcement in a positive and pro-active manner, and will help to ease tensions between the Newark Police Department and the Newark community at large.

We are currently taking applications for the high school students that will participate in the program.  We are interested in dedicated high school students that have displayed leadership qualities and are interested in learning about their legal rights, engaging in meaningful discussion regarding police-youth relations, and playing an active role in the revitalization of Newark.  The students will be paid a onetime $100 stipend for participation in the program.

Additionally, the students that we train will participate in the “What to do When Stopped by the Police Campaign” being spearheaded by the Community Relations Division of the NPD.  That campaign will be creating a video presentation regarding student-police relations to play in Newark’s high schools.  The ten students that we train will appear on the video and discuss the importance of knowing their rights and the proper way to communicate with police.

Please address any questions to farha@newarkchange.org.

We are also continuing to work on several initiatives that Executive Director Laurel Dumont played an integral role in developing prior to founding the Center. These include working with the Newark Municipal Court, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, and the Center for Court Innovation on the implementation phase of the Newark Community Court, and with Volunteer Lawyers for Justice on the Newark Reentry Legal Services (ReLeSe) program.