YMCA Caring Community Centers (Apartment Outreach Programs)

The YMCA of Greater Houston's Caring Community Centers' Apartment Outreach Programs purpose is to impact the lives of residents through programs and services focused on children's academic success, healthy lifestyles, creating a safe environment, and improving adults' capacity to manage their money. Our target population is apartment youth and families living in apartment complexes located in seven inner-city communities in Harris County. Activities to achieve program goals include homework monitoring, strengthening of reading comprehension skills, 'drop-out recapturing,' physical fitness, health screenings for families, water safety and basic rescue technique classes, community pride projects, personal/neighborhood safety workshops, drug and alcohol abuse prevention classes, financial literacy classes for adults, parenting workshops, and ESL (English as a Second Language) classes for improved job readiness skills. The goals and objectives of the program are: 1) programs will incorporate developmental assets in youth to assure academic success, 2) children will be monitored to assure completion of daily homework assignments, 3) children will read four (4)books per month with a reading comprehension evaluation after each book, 3) 'Drop-out recapturing' initiative will be conducted at each apartment complex resulting in 100 drop-outs recaptured, 4) programs will promote healthy living through education and opportunities for physical activity and 175 youth involved in Healthy Kids Fitness Test will demonstrate a 50% individual improvement from baseline assessment taken at beginning of school year. Performance measures will include: detailed daily individual attendance and reading records will be kept at each site; program manager will monitor reading goals and incentive systems; site staff will conduct pre-program Healthy Kids Fitness Testing for every program participant; results will be compiled to measure against post-program test results and site staff will collect a list of community partners involved in site presentations; the number of multi-site presentations conducted by each partnering agency; attendance at each presentation; and total numbers in attendance per site. NCA/NCF