To engage both University and community leaders from throughout Minnesota in sustained partnerships for the benefit of Minnesota children, President Bruininks is convening a series of three yearly Children's Summits. The Summit series will bring attention to the first two decades of life and how children at every developmental stage need to start strong and stay strong. Parents and families are integral to children at every stage of life -- from birth through the transition to adulthood -- and so are the communities, neighborhoods and public life that sustain them.

This year's summit, Staying Strong Through Challenge and Change focuses on issues relating to middle childhood. Middle childhood and the transition to adolescence is a timely focus for the Summit.  Current research has increasingly found that the elementary and middle school years (ages 5-14) play a distinct role in child development, and appropriate interventions during middle childhood are demonstrating good outcomes in later adolescence.  The summit will take place June 4, 2004 at Coffman Union on the Twin Cities campus. Summit organizers are once again planning to stream the video and audio of the summit live via the web as well as broadcasting to University of Minnesota coordinate campuses in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, Rochester and the UM Research and Outreach Center in Lamberton.

The first, held May 30, 2003, focused on "Starting Strong," with an emphasis on the early foundations of healthy development and learning -- and the programs, policies, practices, and conditions that enable children and their families to thrive and succeed. Common to all of the Summits in the series is a focus on what needs to happen in families, schools, communities, workplaces, and the society-at-large to promote good outcomes for children and youth.

The Summit series is part of the President's Initiative on Children, Youth and Families which is dedicated to increasing public engagement on the pressing issues facing children, youth and families.