Strategies

Match disadvantaged or at-risk youth with volunteer mentors in school or community settings

Support locally-based visual, media, and performing arts initiatives for children and adults; also called participatory arts programs

Provide space to promote socializing among community members and offer programs and services such as recreational or educational activities, counseling or support services

Combine academic, mental and physical health, and social service resources in schools for students and families via partnerships with community organizations; also called community learning centers

Establish a non-share capital cooperative model in which fee-paying members can share the communal resources of a grocery, house, or utility cooperative

Return the rights to land, property, and resources to Native people as part of policies and initiatives that promote tribal sovereignty

Delay school start times for middle and high schools to better align with adolescent sleep-wake cycles; often until after 8:30 or 9:00 a.m.

Establish voluntary formal groups of residents who work together to create a unified voice, enhance living conditions in their neighborhood, and address neighborhood concerns

Allow community members to gather, socialize, walk, run, bike, skate, etc. on streets temporarily to closed to motorized traffic; also called Ciclovía programs

Engage community members to determine how public budgets are spent, ideally to improve neighborhood conditions and reduce inequality.

Teach positively stated behavior expectations to all students, often reinforced with prizes or privileges and supported with coaching and data

Bring people with diverse values and perspectives together to engage in facilitated, inclusive, and informed dialogues about a topic of public concern. Examples include Citizens’ Initiative Reviews, deliberative polling, citizen juries, and citizen’s assemblies.

Lend materials, offer gathering space, and provide educational, civic, and social programming; open to the community and publicly funded

Require school officials to apply predetermined consequences for certain infractions, regardless of situational context or circumstances; consequences are usually severe (e.g., suspension or expulsion)

Support programs to provide students with a nutritious breakfast in the cafeteria, from grab and go carts in hallways, or in classrooms

Provide health care services on school premises to attending elementary, middle, and high school students; physical and mental health services provided by teams of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians

Implement focused efforts to help children recognize and manage emotions, set and reach goals, appreciate others’ perspectives, and maintain relationships; also called social and emotional learning (SEL)

Help students process trauma exposure and develop coping skills through individual or small group counseling with mental health professionals or school staff with trauma-specific training

Address students’ disruptive and antisocial behavior by teaching self-awareness, emotional self-control, self-esteem, social problem solving, conflict resolution, team work, social skills, etc.

Provide students from public schools, from low income backgrounds, or who have a high risk of dropping out and their families with information about social services and health care supports; also called community resource or family and community liaisons

Support individual and group use of internet-based tools to receive news, communicate or share information, collaborate on ideas, mobilize networks, and make collective decisions

Support and strengthen traumatized and distressed residents and communities and address effects of community trauma (e.g., poverty, violence, structural racism, etc.) via a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder, and multilevel approach

Adopt a multi-tiered approach within schools to address the needs of trauma-exposed youth, including school-wide changes, screenings, and individual intensive support

Deliver a curriculum-based program that helps all students learn to recognize warning signs of suicide in themselves and others in a school setting

Increase the number of registered voters through initiatives that reduce barriers and expand accessibility, including automatic voter registration (AVR), voter registration drives, easing voter registration requirements, and expanding registration sites

Increase voter turnout through get-out-the-vote campaigns and initiatives to make voting more convenient such as allowing early in-person voting, vote-by-mail, or expanding polling locations and hours

Teach students attitudes, skills, knowledge, and behavior needed to participate in and contribute to a democracy