Moving Ahead
CHA Low-Income Services’ (CHALIS’) Moving Ahead Program is a community-based youth program that is centered in and around the J.W. “Blind” Boone Community Center, which is located in the Downtown Family Site. The Moving Ahead Program follows the principles of one of the most recognized at-risk youth prevention programs available – CASASTART – which was judged a model program by:
• Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
It also received exemplary and/or promising endorsements from:
• Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science (University of Colorado at Boulder)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Promising Practices Network on Children, Families, and Communities
• Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, U.S. Department of Education
• U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Youth Violence
• Western Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (University of Nevada)
The Moving Ahead Program, using the CASASTART model, is a community-based program designed to keep high-risk children and youth free of substance abuse and criminal involvement. It seeks to build resiliency in youths, strengthen families, and make neighborhoods safer for children and their families. The program employs a positive youth development framework and uses intensive case management to coordinate and provide services to counteract the various factors that make children vulnerable to substance abuse and delinquency.
Each CASASTART program (i.e., CHALIS’ Moving Ahead Program) is managed locally, in deference to local culture and setting, but shares with the other programs the following eight basic core components:
• Case management
• Education services
• Family services
• Mentoring
• After school and summer activities
• Incentives/recognitions
• Community-enhanced policing/enhanced enforcement
• Criminal/juvenile justice intervention
The bulk of the Moving Ahead Program’s activities for children and youth occur Monday through Thursday from 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. on a year-round basis. On-site special events and field trips occur after 6:30 p.m., on Friday evenings, on weekends, and on some summer days. Moving Ahead case management, as well as communication with Columbia Public School teachers, counselors, and administrators; 13th Judicial Circuit’s Juvenile Office personnel; Columbia Police Department officers; Columbia Housing Authority (CHA) Public housing staff; and CHA Section 8 employees typically occurs Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
CHALIS’ Moving Ahead Program receives funding from the Missouri Department of Public Safety (Title II Grant) and the City of Columbia, Missouri (Social Services funds).
For more information, contact Ron Schmidt, Dirctor of Family Self-Sufficiency and Youth Programs at (573) 443-2556, ext. 1112 or rschmidt@columbiaha.com or
Carroll Zu-Bolton, Program Coordinator at (573) 443-2556, ext. 1273 or carroll@columbiaha.com
