Date: September 10, 2008

To: RCPL Board of Trustees

From: G. Chapman

Re: Welcome back to school meetings and partnerships

Date: September 2, 2008

To: Greta Chapman

From: Terri Davis

Re: Welcome back to school meetings and partnerships

With the start of the school year, we anticipate welcoming back a number of youth to the library during the after school hours.

In order to make the most of these interactions with youth and to share the space with all library users, the staff worked during the spring with Tim McGowan, counselor at Central High School. Tim held both group and one-on-one sessions with the staff to provide additional insights about working with middle to high school aged students.

As a result of the proactive interactions by staff, patron incident reports dropped during the first half of the year, compared to the same time period last year; we anticipate a similar result for the fall quarter:

In addition to the sessions with Tim, a meeting was held with community partners who work with youth: the YMCA, Methodist Church, Dakota Middle School, and the RC Police Department. Ongoing meetings will be held with these organizations throughout the fall to continue to discuss ways to proactively refocus youth in the Quincy and Kansas City Street areas.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER