UNICEF Child Friendly Cities Initiative

Community Partnership Roundtable (Fall 2023 – Spring 2024)- City of Boulder staff, Growing Up Boulder staff, and local nonprofit partners gathered to learn about CFCI and to narrow down which indicators or “questions” to ask children, youth, caregivers and service providers to learn about young people’s well-being in Boulder. Adult feedback built upon youth feedback already garnered from the City of Boulder’s Youth Opportunities Advisory Board and El Centro Amistad’s Raices Vivas teens.

Situational Analysis (Government Data + Community Conversations)

A “situational analysis” analyzes the “situation” of young people in a community. It is composed of quantitative data from government and other sources and qualitative data from the local community. The data will be reviewed by the community to determine the priorities for improvement in young people’s lives.

Government Assessment Data (Summer 2023 - Winter 2024) - City staff, Growing Up Boulder staff, and community partners gathered quantitative data from sources such as the census, the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey and Boulder Valley School District data.

Community Conversations Trainings (Nov. 2023-Feb. 2024) – Growing Up Boulder staff, with support from consultants Mayamotion Healing and Uka Consulting, taught educators and youth workers from schools and community-based organizations about the Child Friendly City Initiative. Trainers then discussed how to facilitate “community conversations” within their communities using culturally responsive and flexible approaches, ranging from visual surveys to storytelling. The goal of “community conversations” was to hear from children, teens, caregivers, and service providers about their key priorities for improving young people’s lives in Boulder.

Teen Town Hall (Dec. 2023) – Organized by City of Boulder’s Youth Opportunities Advisory Board, teens gathered to discuss top priorities and concerns for teens in Boulder.

Youth Well-Being Assessment (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024) – A questionnaire on Be Heard Boulder, available bilingually for children and adults, gathered general community feedback about ranked priorities for youth and children in Boulder; 207 people participated in the survey.

Community Partner Engagements (Nov. 2023 – Feb. 2024) - Growing Up Boulder, Youth Opportunities Advisory Board (YOAB) teens, and nonprofit partners facilitated Community Conversations using art, voting, open dialogue and classroom lessons. A total of 683 participants participated in these engagements, including children, youth, caregivers and service providers.

While Growing Up Boulder has been supporting youth engagement for 13 years, and the city’s Youth Opportunities Advisory Board (YOAB) brings teen voices to city planning, the structural support from the UNICEF CFCI Framework of Action offers a new way to bring city departments together to align efforts and further reach populations that experience structural and systemic inequities. Becoming an official UNICEF Child Friendly City would allow Boulder to be formally recognized for our work and elevate our impact to the next level.

A city's commitment to children doesn't end once it is recognized as a UNICEF Child Friendly City; instead, it continues to build upon the relationships and plans it developed during the recognition process to advance young people's well-being. Additionally, the City of Boulder has the option to renew its collaboration with UNICEF USA after recognition by committing to future program cycles and adopting a new action plan to deepen, sustain and expand efforts from the first action plan.

UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities Initiative is guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention is the most rapidly and widely ratified international human rights treaty in history. The Convention changed the way children are viewed and treated – i.e., as human beings with a distinct set of rights, instead of as passive objects of care and charity.

To date, 196 countries have become State Parties to the Convention. The United States has not ratified the Convention. CFCI is, however, a valuable way for local communities across the US to signify a commitment to the spirit and ideals behind the Convention.

Though the MOU is signed with UNICEF USA, formal recognition is as a UNICEF Child Friendly City.

• A place where children are safe and protected from exploitation, violence and abuse
• A place to have a good start in life and grow up healthy and cared for; a place to have access to essential services
• A place to experience quality, inclusive and participatory education and skills development
• A place to express their opinions and influence decisions that affect them
• A place to participate in family, cultural, community and social life
• A clean, unpolluted and safe environment with equitable access to the outdoors
• A place to meet friends and have places to play and recreate
• A place to have a fair chance at life regardless of their ethnic origin, religion, income, gender or ability

For over eight decades, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has built an unprecedented global support system for the world’s children. UNICEF relentlessly works to deliver the essentials that give every child an equitable chance in life: health care and immunizations, safe water and sanitation, nutrition, education, emergency relief and more. UNICEF USA advances the global mission of UNICEF in the U.S. to empower policies, practices, and programs at the federal, state and local levels to improve the lives of children, starting with our country’s most vulnerable and excluded communities.

Growing Up Boulder (GUB) is a nonprofit program based in Boulder, CO. Their mission is to offer young people opportunities to participate, deliberate, and influence local issues that affect their lives. ​Locally, GUB has engaged directly with more than 7,500 young people, 1,500 university students, 60 partner organizations, and contributed youth voice to more than 100 projects. GUB engages children of all backgrounds to include their input in local government decisions, including on topics such as the design of affordable, sustainable housing, resilience planning, transit systems, parks and open space, and productive community dialogue.

The 2023 budget included a preliminary allocation of $50,000 to support initial planning and engagement efforts to kick-off the project. Additional funds will be allocated to cover consultant support throughout the remainder of the effort.

Once a Local Action Plan is developed, the city plans to leverage an exciting source of funding --- approximately $2 million from the sale of the Broncos stadium – to catalyze plan implementation and advance collective impact projects. Partnerships, grant funding, and additional city allocations will also be critical in sustaining momentum and forward progress.