Nashville Public Library

Nashville Public Library’s Nashville After Zone Alliance, in collaboration with Metro Nashville Public Schools, the Mayor’s Office, Alignment Nashville, and more than 20 community-based organizations, will strengthen Nashville’s capacity to help children/youth thrive through the integration of Nashville’s Vision for Holistic Youth Development and the development and use of community-developed tools to track growth toward realizing the vision. The project also will work with national collaborators, including Every Hour Counts, the Riley Institute at Furman University, and the Urban Libraries Council, to support the capacity of other communities throughout the nation to help children/youth thrive in education, work, and life by disseminating resources and best practices focused on how to create community-developed visions for youth, track growth toward actualizing community-developed visions, and integrate community-developed visions for thriving youth. Project activities include professional development, peer coaching, youth-led initiatives, interactive learning experiences facilitated by community members, curriculum development, and asset mapping. The project positions public libraries to play a role in community visioning and equips communities with accessible resources and best practices that can support community change efforts centered on youth thriving.