Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Power Up YOUth? Power Up YOUth is a coalition of individuals and agencies who come together to share their resources to promote positive youth development.

What is a coalition? A coalition is a group of people and organizations coming together to address an issue. Everything that happens in coalition work occurs because people and organizations lend their time, energy, skills, resources, and expertise to collective activities. A coalition is like a bus, it allows a lot of different people from different backgrounds to come on board to travel in a focused and coordinated way to arrive at an agreed upon destination.

What is your purpose? Power Up YOUth seeks to deliver the 5 Promises to Hamilton County youth: caring adults, safe and drug-free places, healthy starts, an effective education, and opportunities to help others. Our current funding will help us focus onreducing underage consumption of alcohol, as well as to build collaborationamong agencies.

What is your mission? Our target is to help Hamilton County become a healthy and nurturing community where all youth have caring adults, substance abuse-free safe places, healthy starts, marketable skills, and opportunities to serve. By working together to affect and protect the lives of our children and youth, we will secure the future for Hamilton County, making it a safe, healthy community in which to live.

How do you do the work? Power Up YOUth operates under the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) laid out below.

1. Assessment
   1. Create and maintain coalitions and partnerships.
   2. Assess community needs and resources.
   3. Analyze problems and goals.
      
   4. Develop a framework or model for change.
2. Capacity
   
   5. Increase participation and membership.
   6. Build leadership.
   7. Enhance cultural competence.
   8. Improve organizational management and development.
3. Planning
   9. Develop strategic and action plans.
4. Implementation
   10. Develop interventions.
   11. Advocate for change.
   12. Influence policy development.
   13. Write grant applications for funding.
5. Evaluation
   14. Evaluate initiatives.
   15. Sustain projects and initiatives.
6. Cycle through steps again

How is Power Up YOUth funded? There have been dry times when the coalition existed without paid staff. However, Power Up YOUth received a five-year federal Drug Free Communities grant in September 2007. Each year we are required to match 100% of $100,000. Therefore, we rely heavily on volunteers and collaboration with others to remain eligible and to bring about change.

How are Community Champions for Youth selected? Each fall nominations are solicited from the three county school districts. Nominations can be anonymous and returned either by mail, dropped off at area high school offices or at the Hy-Vee customer service center. The youth engagement committee vets the nominations. Then, if more than one nomination is submitted for a school district, the high school students from that district who have been selected to be honored at the Webster City Rotary Youth Leadership Banquet make the final selection through a secret ballot.