Community to help build youth assets

To the editor:

The Community Caring Council would like to extend its appreciation to all who made our 17th annual conference a success. This year's conference introduced the 40 developmental assets initiative, and we will be working diligently to build on the momentum established at the conference.

The conference focused on the ways community members can become involved in asset building for our children to help them achieve more positive experiences in their formative years. The information shared, based on many years of research, showed that the more assets children have, the more positive outcomes they experience in school, personal relationships and interactions with their families. We plan to engage the community in asset-building experiences to build a framework to strengthen these outcomes.

We are already planning next year's conference: a celebration of asset development. This celebration will be planned and presented by youths and will highlight events and programs that have addressed asset development.

We want to thank our sponsors who believed in the initiative enough to support it financially; those individuals, agencies, churches, schools, businesses and organizations who attended; and the individuals and agencies on the youth development committee.

We want to thank the Southeast Missourian and KFVS12 for their promotion and coverage of the conference.

The community has shown that we are ready to take on this initiative and that the potential is here for great strides to be made in the next year. We will all have a role in making our first year successful.

TOM DAVISSON, Executive Director, Community Caring Council, Cape Girardeau