| Under its COPC New Directions grant, the University of Michigan-Flint (UM-Flint) is continuing its partnership with the North Flint Twenty-First Century Communities and the Flint Community Schools to further the education of children, the development of parenting skills, and the growth of microenterprises. The target area for the grant's activities is the Flint Area Enterprise Community, which includes the City of Flint and portions of Mt. Morris Township.
The target area (approximately 9,700 residents) has high levels of poverty and unemployment. Most families in this largely African-American community earn less than 50 percent of the area median family income of $12,248. Of particular concern is the performance of the Flint community schools, where performance scores and graduation rates are considerably below state averages. Community priorities are higher quality, affordable childcare through licensed or registered providers, increased Head Start programs, school restructuring, and micro-business development and entrepreneurial training.
Flint's COPC approach is to stick with parents and their children through every stage of the life cycle, commencing with a child's earliest years by providing a child development training program for parents and childcare providers. It continues through the elementary school years with after-school reading and math rooms, through the middle school years with tutoring programs, and on through the high school years with dropout prevention programs. To help improve the economic self-sufficiency of parents, it provides computer-based business development services.
UM-Flint is primarily a teaching institution, which is located in an urban environment. It is conscious of the need to use its resources to meet the concerns of the community in ways that further its missions of teaching, research, and service. The COPC at UM-Flint draws on resources from three of its university centers: the Center of University Partnerships, the Center for Applied Environmental Research, and the Center for Educational Telecommunications. This last center uses its WFUM public television station to deliver educational programming to the greater Flint community. Other non-university project partners include the Salem Housing Task Force, the Mott Children's Health Center, the Out-County Head Start Program, the 4 C Program, and the C.S. Mott Foundation.
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