Napa CARES (Connection And Resilience to Empower Students)

Napa County Office of Education proposes Napa CARES (Connection And Resilience to Empower Student), a project to increase school safety by addressing the needs of Napa's youth through holistic, wrap-around services. The project objectives are to: 1. Increase effective communication between members of the multiagency CARES network, resulting in streamlined and increased access to services for targeted youth and their families; 2. Increase early intervention and violence prevention by providing youth and families facing challenges with a “backpack of services” individualized to their unique situations and supported through an intensive case management approach; 3. Prepare schools to proactively prevent and respond to threats to safety through continued review and improvement of strategic safety plans. and 4. Reduce isolation and increase resiliency, conflict resolution skills and other protective factors in highest-need youth through participation in the Mariposa, Leadership and Bridging Bothers youth development programs, which will also provide opportunities for family involvement and support and improved communication between home and school. Participating students will show gains in OJJDP’s performance measure category “Protective Factors,” specifically #18: Percentage of eligible individuals who exhibited improved self-esteem and #19: Percentage of eligible individuals with improved parent/caregiver relationships.