Story – Kauai Planning and Action Alliance

We recently talked with Alice Luck of Kauai Planning and Action Alliance (KPAA) who shared more about KPAA and the work they are doing in the community.

Can you tell us about the vision and mission of your organization?

The mission of Kauai Planning and Action Alliance (KPAA) is to bring together diverse organizations for collaborative planning and action to achieve targeted community goals.  We carry out our mission by fostering creative solutions and aligning efforts among those who shape the destiny of our island:

• Providing a safe and open forum for dialogue.
• Setting priorities based on current data and indicators.
• Collecting and publishing indicators data on trends, progress, and outcomes related to our priorities.
• Targeting specific actions and being committed continuous improvement to reach them

KPAA’s primary focus is education and youth development, with our flagship initiative Keiki to Career Kauai (K2C). K2C is a collaboration of 42 community partners from across the island representing a diverse group of stakeholders. K2C’s vision is for every child to be healthy, competent, confident and caring. K2C’s partners work together to improve our young people’s education opportunities, strengthen families, and provide support for our youth from birth to career. Our core belief is that by aligning and leveraging island resources, we will accomplish so much more than any organization can do alone.

K2C’s work is currently focused in two areas – early literacy and youth resilience. We work with Kekaha Elementary School and the community to bring our Reading Buddies into the school and organize other events and activities that promote reading at home, in school, and in the community. We also convene a group of 30 public and private agencies each month, called the Kauai Resilience Project (KRP), to work collaboratively to increase protective factors in our youth and ensure that all kids have the developmental assets and developmental relationships that are critical to positive youth development and building resilience. The goal of the KRP is to reduce the rate of youth suicide attempts on Kauai among high school students, currently at 9%, by 50% in five years.

How have things changed due to COVID-19? 

Covid-19 has presented profound challenges to our community, including those that threaten mental health and emotional well-being. The Kauai Resilience Project’s work is critical, perhaps now more than ever, as families are under increased stress due to the pandemic and the day to day lives of our youth have been disrupted. Strong relationships between adults and youth are even more critical now to ensure that our youth all have at least one adult that helps them feel safe and supported through this trying time.

Are there increased services or supports that your organization is providing to help the community due to COVID-19?

During the summer, K2C produced a series of parent handouts to inform parents about critical child health and mental health topics relevant to Covid. These can be accessed on our website at https://keikitocareer.org/call-to-action/kauai-resilience/resilience-resources/

We were fortunate to receive Kupaa Kauai CARES Act funding as well. This funding will be going to various projects in the community, all around the goals of suicide prevention and mental health stigma reduction. We know that the stigma surrounding mental health is still strong, and we want to encourage all those in need of help or just someone to talk to, to reach out and access the National Suicide Prevention hotline, the Crisis Line, or professional counseling through their healthcare provider.