The Resource Alert Project (RAP) is a new, comprehensive communication model and collaborative effort to consistently engage and enrich Greater Detroit youth.

What is The Resource Alert Project (RAP)?

With a demo version currently available on the Google Play Store, RAP will improve the way we share resources to and for our (primarily 13- to 21-year-old youth and young adults. However, RAP is more than a technology product, and must be supported by companion products and projects to bolster project awareness and outreach in our efforts to build brighter futures in a better Detroit every day.

The Resource Alert Project (RAP) is a free, powerful, practical “app” for mobile devices (tablets, laptops and personal computers too) that consistently delivers important information about youth and community resources to benefit Detroit's young generation, and better us all.

• Too many young people don’t know what resources are available to them.

• Too many youth and community resources don’t know about each other.

• Too few (children), teens and young adults leverage resources that can help them succeed in school and life.

• Too few youth and community resources connect and collaborate to create a more unified, functional , empowered network.

WHY The Resource Alert Project?

The Detroit Youth Resource Alert Project (RAP) is built on a simple premise that most children need one of two things to make more out of life: positive people and / or productive options.

“Children spend only 20 percent of their waking time annually in formal classroom education.” That leaves 80 percent of their time for exploring and enhancing their learning interests in non-school settings.”

Elena Lopez, Ph.D.,The Harvard Family Research Project

“The presence and positive engagement of parents and other caring adults is and always will make the greatest difference in young people’s lives.”

My Brother’s Keeper Task Force,Report to the President, May 30, 2014

WHY RAP?

Aided by the convenience and constant access provided by mobile devices, especially smart phones, 92% of teens report going online daily — including 24% who say they go online “almost constantly.”

Nearly three-quarters of teens have or have access to a smart phone and 30% have a basic phone, while just 12% of teens 13 to 17 say they have no cell phone of any type. African-American teens are the most likely of any group of teens to have a smart phone, with 85% having access to one, compared with 71% of both white and Hispanic teens.

(Pew Research Center, April, 2015).

WHY RAP? (cont'd.)

How Will RAP Solve These Problems?

Consistently communicate these resources – and youth events, programs, activities, job and scholarship information, etc. – to individuals, families and communities using the RAP mobile “app”, along with a variety of companion projects such as media and PR initiatives, online outreach (website marketing, e-newsletters and social media), and live events to increase RAP users.

Continue to grow an online directory* of youth-serving individuals and groups in the Greater Detroit Area that now contains more than 275 youth resources, and engage as much support and many supporters as possible.

Resource Alert Project GOALS To improve ways we engage, encourage

and enrich our children.

To consistently share information for Detroit youth with our families and communities.

To activate more individual contributions from great Detroiters – as supporters, volunteers and mentors – to collectively benefit more of Detroit's young generation.

To inspire a better informed and more collaborative youth-serving community throughout the Greater Detroit area that will lead to brighter futures for us all.

Currently working with high school students who are learning how to code and develop apps with the help of a Microsoft certified trainer. These students will then use their new skills to update The Detroit Youth Resource Alert Project (RAP) mobile app. This update will include a 24-hour hotline; job, scholarship and internship opportunities; and, information on more than 15,000 colleges, universities, technical schools and vocational schools.

Launching an area-wide PR and media campaign to garner more youth resources.

Increasing project awareness and value by enlisting RAP network partners such as ARISE Detroit, The Detroit Impact Center, Wayne County Mental Health Authority, Building Better Men, and others.

Creating companion projects such as the new student-directed television show, “30 Minutes With Detroit” (www.vimeo.com/116395042) in partnership with PBS and The Detroit Public Television Network.

Discussing, determining and delivering strategies to better engage youth, family and community resources; youth and students; and our communities-at-large.

Developing related initiatives such as student resource fairs at area high schools.

Where We ARE

Implementation PLAN Establish project identity, visibility, viability and

credibility

Develop team leadership and organizational structure

Form partnerships and alliances

Secure project funding

Define project metrics

Refine creative and technical development

RAP is a communication & collaboration initiative for greater youth engagement & enrichment