What happens when you bring 50 community leaders into the same room to talk about what we're seeing in our students?
New connections. Cross-sector problem-solving. And the most common feedback: "I wish we had more time."
That's the goal of the Community Leaders Series (https://www.goodworksresults.com/communityleadersseries), creating spaces for businesses, nonprofits, law enforcement, educators, and local government to see challenges from different angles and forge the partnerships needed to solve them.
At our March "As We See It" event at the Alive Center NFP (https://www.alivecenter.org) in Village of Hanover Park, we overwhelmed the space in the best way possible. The core insight from our featured guide, Melinda Perez-Carter (Lake Park High School): "Behavior is communication." To understand what a student is trying to tell us, we start by building the relationship first.
What emerged from the small group discussions:
- Schools can't do this alone, they need community wraparound support.
- Effective collaboration requires knowing each other personally.
- Shifting from punitive to restorative approaches.
- Students move between many environments each day. The challenge isn't a lack of care, it's coordination.
Next up in the Series: "Mental Health in the Workplace" May 5, 8:00-9:15am at NAMI DuPage (https://www.namidupage.org) Register: https://www.goodworksresults.com/communityleadersseries
Thanks to Bloomingdale Township Mental Health Board, Alex Anderson (Alive Center), Melinda Perez-Carter (Lake Park High School), and Michael Murray (https://www.Advocatefor708.org) for partnering with Good Works Results LLC (https://www.goodworksresults.com) to convene this event.