United Way of Santa Barbara


		Make a Donation
		Contact Us
		Get E-News

Media & Events

Calendar of Events/RSVP

Event Photo Gallery

News Releases/Media Contact

E-News & Print Newsletters

News Releases/Media Contact

Visits to Two "Best Practice" Educational Programs Proves Inspirational

United Way of Santa Barbara County, as part of its Power of Partnership Initiative, participated with a group of local community and education leaders on visits to two acclaimed programs that are successfully helping to close the achievement gap for children and families in underserved communities. In May, leadership from Santa Barbara local government, public schools, philanthropic foundations and United Way toured the Harlem Children's Zone in New York City and the Lennox Safe School Alliance program in the Los Angeles Lennox School District.

Both programs are widely acclaimed for the achievement of significant, measurable results and for their approaches, which involve an entire school, neighborhood, and community's participation in the welfare and future success of its children.

The goal of the tours was to learn from both programs, which will help to inform the design and implementation of programs in south Santa Barbara County. The Power of Partnership Initiative (POPI), started in January 2007, has reached its goal of facilitating the community's final vision, goals, outcomes, and strategies for the south Santa Barbara County area. The next step is to identify the best practices that could be implemented in the south Santa Barbara County, and two successful models programs in the U.S., the Harlem Children's Zone and the Lennox School District, surfaced as the most compelling possibilities.

"The Harlem Children's Zone is such an important concept - community-wide support in specific neighborhoods for children and families struggling with poverty," said Paul Didier, CEO of United Way of Santa Barbara County. "United Way has strong experience with partnerships designed to improve lives of children and their families and dramatically improve their future success with our Pre-K Institutes and Fun in the Sun programs, and we are actively seeking and studying innovative programs that are resulting in great improvements in other communities."

The Harlem Children's Zone is a holistic system of education, social-service and community-building programs aimed at helping the children and families in a specific location, like Harlem in New York or the Lennox neighborhood in Los Angeles. The Harlem Children's Zone approach revolves around three programs: Promise Academy Charter Schools, which are intensive, public charter schools that offer a wide range of services to their students; Beacon Community Centers, a program that turns public schools into community centers for children and adults after-school, on weekends and in the summer; and Foster Care Preventive Services, which strengthens struggling families. The concept is to transform the entire local community into a support system so that achievement and enrichment programs do not end with the school day.

Lennox School District, whose student population is 95% Hispanic and more than 90%, low-income, has gone from being a gang and violence-ridden school district; with more than 70% elementary and middle school English language learners (those for whom English is is a new language), to a school district that is succeeding in reducing the number of high school drop outs while greatly improving student achievement in standardized tests.

United Way of Santa Barbara County leveraged its proven experience in developing community partnerships to organize the trips, and Santa Barbara Bank & Trust made the Harlem trip possible with a generous grant of $7,500 for some of the group's travel expenses.

Get E-News Updates

Sign up to receive our
E-News to see how United Way of Santa Barbara County helps year-round. Sign up now! » Learn More

Fun in the Sun!

Learn more about this terrific summer program, as well as its lunchtime component, the Lunch Bunch

» Find out more