BOSTON -- On April 5, 2023, after Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb met with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and a group of Cleveland high school students, Bibb expressed hopes of creating “a children’s cabinet in the administration to address issues facing young people in Cleveland,” cleveland.com’s Gretchen Cuda Kroen reported.
Children’s cabinets operate differently in each city. Successful cabinets unify residents and organizations as cabinet members to design focused cross-sector and resident-centered services to aid major youth advancement.
Youth violence, food and housing insecurity, health disparities, educational inequities, and economic injustices are a few major issues affecting Cleveland residents. There are organizations in our city that are attempting to reduce inequities, in silos, but there is not a sustained citywide cross-sector strategy working effectively to disrupt generational poverty.
Under Mayor Bibb’s leadership, we have an opportunity to rethink the way our city develops collaborative systemic supports to create a successful cradle-to-career pipeline.
Cleveland’s children’s cabinet can shift power from institutions to a shared structure, where community members will have multiple seats at the cabinet table. According to Harvard University’s EdRedesign Lab, a children’s cabinet “aligns resources, closes programming gaps and reduces duplication, while preparing all children and youth to grow and thrive from birth to adulthood.”
Children’s cabinets work collaboratively across sectors with community leaders such as mayors, county leaders, superintendents, leaders of health and human service agencies, leaders of out-of-school-time organizations, families, and students to support the well-being and education of youth and families in their communities.
Eighty-plus cities including, Boston; Louisville, Kentucky; Oakland; Poughkeepsie, New York; and Dayton are currently implementing models of children’s cabinets. Reflectingly, Cleveland has all of the resources to create a children’s cabinet that can be a national model of excellence.
A crucial action step to build Cleveland’s children’s cabinet is securing multiple financial sources.
Marijuana tax revenue is one ideal revenue source. A recently updated Ohio State study, “What Tax Revenues Should Ohioans Expect If Ohio Legalizes Adult-Use Cannabis?,” estimates that the state of Ohio could see upwards of $200 million in yearly tax revenue. The potential revenue can be used via new legislation to stimulate a large-scale cross-sector approach to addressing violence, supporting extended learning opportunities in our communities, and eliminating systemic racial inequities for the greater good of all Ohio residents.
Some states that have legalized recreational marijuana usage have implemented policies to support underserved communities with a focus on the greater good of children and youth.
Vermont legislation allocated marijuana tax revenue to a grant program to start or expand afterschool and summer-learning programs, focusing on underserved areas; as much as $4 million could be allocated next year, based on January 2023 projections.
In the state of New York, there is legislation that dedicates 40% of marijuana adult-use tax revenues towards community reinvestment and revitalization as part of the Community Grants Reinvestment Fund. That’s out of $350 million a year in total projected tax revenue when fully implemented.
In Alaska, marijuana tax revenue funded $2 million in fiscal-year 2023 grants through the Positive Youth Development Afterschool Program.
In Illinois, violence prevention legislation includes a human services grants program funded by cannabis taxes that aims at “building equity in communities that have been ravaged by violence and disproportionately impacted by criminal justice system overuse and economic disinvestment.” In state fiscal year 2022, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority reported awarding $48.6 million in marijuana tax revenue grants to 183 organizations “initiating R3 [“Restore, Reinvest, and Renew] programs in their communities.”
The state of Ohio has a unique opportunity to open the floodgates of equity. Cleveland can be a leading facilitator using a children’s cabinet as a model to eliminate the ills of poverty for the youth and the families that need it the most.
Derrick Holifield is an educator from the Glenville neighborhood in Cleveland. He worked for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District for nine years before recently relocating to Boston to pursue a doctoral degree from Harvard University.
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