A Little Rock Community Programs Advisory Committee is reviewing input for an updated Youth Master Plan this Thursday.
The Community Programs office has held 30 community meetings to update its plan, first drafted 20 years ago, in an effort to fight crime and create opportunities for Little Rock youth in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
?Program director Dana Dossett said the revised plan will focus on a need for more youth mentors, activities, and parental support from the city, especially in the Downtown and Southwest Little Rock areas.
She said an updated plan will also be better geared toward a new generation of young people, who have grown up with greater levels of digital access than the generation before.
“Technology needs to be taken into account. Just the different things that are available to youth of the today, " she said. "That requires looking at new opportunities in a new way.”
According to Dossett, her office has a $5.5 million annual budget, which doesn’t stretch far enough for the programming needs of the city's youth. One priority for the plan is to make better use of existing resources by improving coordination between local schools, parents, social service agencies.
A meeting to develop the Master Youth Plan will be held from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Thursday at the Willie Hinton Neighborhood Resource Center in Little Rock.
