Our Work
Our Kids brings together local government, public school districts, higher education researchers, and youth-serving nonprofits around a single shared commitment to children's success.
Our Kids is a coordination effort, not a standalone program. The work is to help partners align around clear outcomes, concentrate support where children need it most, and make progress visible enough to act on.
What we do
Our Kids operates as a collective impact backbone organization in South Bend and in target neighborhoods, beginning with the NNN.
We believe that every time in a child’s life is critical to their development and thriving, and that it is the responsibility of our whole community to care for all of our kids in our community. This is the inspiration behind the name: Our Kids.
We aim to deepen and broaden this collective commitment in the following ways:
To empower communities: we aim to engage and support local leaders and institutions, listen to community voices, and build bridges to deepen relationships throughout our community.
To strengthen partners: we aim to identify promising partners, co-design place-based goals, identify barriers, collaborate to address barriers and strengthen support, measure progress, and share learning.
To align evidence-based services: we aim to set shared goals, foster improved coordination, collaboration, and resourcing, and measure and transparently track progress towards shared goals.