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4. Middle and High School pr grams that address risky behavior It appears that the LifeSkills class in middle school has had a positive impact. We need to investigate how something like this can be continued into high school as well as expanded to include delinquent behavior, teen pregnancy, STDs, bullying etc. Why: There is a lot of at risk behavior and we need to ensure that it is addressed early and repeatedly. Taking the Long Term View We believe the community (politicians, agencies, philanthropists, employers, parents, etc.) must start taking a long-term view focusing 15-25 years out. We have a cycle of poverty in IRC that has been increasing and needs to be broken. We believe interventions should start as early as possible in a child's life in order to have the greatest impact. That is why our top two priorities are Early Childhood Development and Building Parent Capacity. We also must ensure IRC is using national best practices. This would include investing in interventions that are scalable, evidence based and cost efficient. With the internet, best practices are easy to access. For example, NIEER (National Association for Early Education Research) sets standards and rates all 50 states PreK programs.Additionally, the IRC Funders Forum (Funder Collaborative) has recently funded a best practices education series for Agency Executive Directors and their boards. Collaboration in the community is essential and can help optimize human and financial resources, expose and eliminate overlap.A shared voice can make sure the top priorities are addressed. We have several excellent examples of collaboration in IRC - the Moonshot Moment (collaboration between SDIRC, Learning Alliance and 40 other organizations), Life Skills (collaboration between SDIRC and Substance Awareness Center) as well as the Mental Health Collaborative and TC Homeless Services Council. Given that IRC poverty is in geographically disbursed pockets and that we have unique transportation problems,we must always keep in mind that services need to be available where and when people need and can access them.We also must also utilize the best mediums to clearly communicate what,when and where these services are available. IRC has fallen behind other central Florida counties in its investment in children. All other counties on the Treasure Coast have a Children's Services Council whose funds, raised locally, enable them to leverage additional federal and state matching funds (School Readiness, Early Head Start, etc.) Therefore,we need to take a hard look at the financial resources in IRC dedicated to our children. The complete report is attached: 4 126