Changing the Trajectory of Urban Youth & Our Inner-City Neighborhoods
Inner-city Knoxville neighborhoods have significant disparities, including urban youth lagging 50 percent behind academically to their suburban peers, limited access to comprehensive, quality health care, safe spaces to convene, access to recreation, and quality job training. Emerald Youth Foundation (EYF) is working to change the trajectory of urban youth and families, ultimately bringing transformation and renewal to urban neighborhoods by saturating them with accessible opportunities. In 2019, EYF developed the Haslam-Sansom Ministry Complex, a community partnership model providing services to youth and their families in Lonsdale. EYF seeks to 1) study the viability of replicating this model, whether this is an additional complex or another ministry model to implement services in another inner-city neighborhood with challenging and unique needs, and 2) to assess the expansion of the primary care services provided at the health clinic in Lonsdale, to include multi-disciplinary and specialty services such as pediatrics, mental health, allergy, and asthma, to also be a model to replicate across the city, and 3) to identify where the disparities are greatest for this needed model placement.