Thursday, March 28, 2024

Southlake City Council Adopts Youth Master Plan Ordinance

Southlake City Council adopted the 2035 Youth Master Plan at the September 4 Council meeting. This new master plan element recognizes the importance of investing in the younger generations and their role in the City’s future.

The purpose of the Youth Master Plan is to establish clear goals and priorities for the next several years related to building up and encouraging youth in the community.

“The Youth Master Plan is a brand new element in the Southlake 2035 Comprehensive Plan that was developed by the community’s youth and provides recommendations to strengthen a number of existing youth-related programs as well as provides many recommendations related to leadership, community engagement, health & wellness, and volunteerism” said Senior Planning and Development Services Director Ken Baker.

In total, there are twenty-one (21) recommendations in the Youth Master Plan. Grouped by the categories listed above, these recommendations speak to involving the community’s youth in the policy and decision-making process, expanding library programming, promoting safety and security, as well as health and wellness programs, and even working to expand volunteer opportunities for the youth. A major takeaway from this plan is that the City should actively seek the youth perspective when developing certain master plan elements, expanding youth programming, and ensuring the City does what it can to foster an environment where youth have opportunities to build leadership and job skills, and remain or become engaged stakeholders in their community.

The plan underscores that to successfully implement the developed recommendations it is critically important to maintain a strong partnership with our citizens and continuously identify opportunities to engage our corporate citizens and various community groups.

To ensure adequate representation and feedback from the community’s youth, City Council appointed the Southlake Youth Action Commission (SYAC) to develop this plan. City staff also held meetings with the Southlake Kids Interested in Leadership (SKIL) and the Community Engagement Committee (CEC) between October 2017 and March 2018. All three committees participated in surveys, tabletop exercises and discussions that provided invaluable insight in the development of this plan, particularly in regard to furthering youth engagement in Southlake.

If you have any questions regarding the Youth Master Plan please contact the Planning and Development Services Department at (817) 748-8621 or visit our city website.