U-CARE (Urban Children Are Really Essential) Program

Urban Dreams' U-CARE (Urban Children Are Really Essential) project works with high-risk youth in Des Moines and Waterloo, Iowa, and Jefferson City, Missouri. U-CARE proposes to continue the program in these communities and expand it to include the increasingly urban cities of Ames, Davenport, and Iowa City, Iowa. The focus of this program is the development and implementation of local programs that provide direct prevention services, high-risk youth intervention services, and/or systems improvement projects to increase local capacity to serve targeted youth. Urban Dreams' U-CARE project's goal is to lower disproportionate minority contact (DMC) rates with the juvenile justice system through increasing systems' capacity to leverage internal resources to sustain innovative, best-practice programming. Urban Dreams' U-CARE program will be managed and coordinated by a Project Manager who is responsible for development, implementation, evaluation, and sustainability of local projects, under the supervision of the Programs Director and Executive Director. The U-CARE Project Manager will develop collaborative partnerships with community-based entities and institution to provide services and systems-based projects. The statewide infrastructure will be utilized to manage the communications, policies, quality assurance, and expansion of evidence-based services. Measures of program progress include: 100 high-risk minority youth will receive direct prevention services; 50 high-risk minority youth will receive direct intervention services; 90% of participating youth will not offend or reoffend over a 12 month period; 6 Memorandums of Understanding will be developed between Urban Dreams' statewide U-CARE program and local organizations/agencies; 40 local DMC-reduction planning activities will be conducted; and 200 youth and/or family members will utilize best-practice DMC prevention on intervention services. NCA/NCF