The notion of mapping – taking stock of what already exists – makes so much sense, particularly for the New Orleans Children & Youth Planning Board. State legislation and a City ordinance has set the purpose of CYPB to include the formulation of a comprehensive plan for services/programs for children and youth of New Orleans. Community resource mapping is now an essential part of CYPB’s work. Essentially, the Community Resource Mapping Project represents CYPB’s pre-work to formulating the plan the board is purposed to formulate, which includes learning about what already exists. So, we start with a healthy knowledge and appreciation of where we are to plan the steps needed to take our findings with us as leverage for our go forward position as a Parish, on behalf of our children, youth and their families.
The Main Idea:
NOLA Teens from NORDC Career Camps, coached by CYPB Interns from Dillard University, become Youth Mappers and research resources, canvas neighborhoods, interview providers to identify great youth resources and activities across the NOLA/Orleans Parish landscape.
How Long It Takes:
4 weeks: June 20 – July 28, 2017
The Purpose:
Data collection and youth engagement
- Give youth a strong role in identifying resources available to them
- Gather information on services/programs and organizations
The Main Products:
- A hard copy directory and a searchable database of youth services/programs and referral resources
- An excellent group of skill3ed youth interviewers and service/program advocates
What It Looks Like:
CYPB provides training for teams of young people to research services/programs and organizations. The research is done via surveys, calls, visits, community walks where detailed information is gathered on available youth services. The data is reviewed by youth, their coaches to sort and categorize it by type of service, youth served, etc. Sorted data is used to create a resource guide, searchable database and an illustrated map that show what services exist and where.