Fairfield Police Activities League Inc.

Fairfield PAL provides a safe and fun environment of equality that empowers and encourages youth to overcome challenges, gain self respect, respect others, discover their potential and develop a sense of belonging to their community.

Since 2009, Fairfield PAL has served over 4000 teens and their families offering sports, health and

Goal One: Increases in: Amount of time spent in supervised, pro-social activities, especially among underserved / disconnected teens

Goal Two: Increases in: Youth perceptions of their own physical and emotional safety

Goal Three: Increases in: Interpersonal skills among participating teens (assets / interpersonal skills) Youth’s positive beliefs about their own future

The onboarding process for PAL includes training as well as ongoing professional development. Staff are training best practices for youth development, the Alive & Free framework, group leadership and facilitation, Brief Interventions, behavior guidance strategies, relationship building, the 40 Development Assets, Adverse Childhood Experiences, trauma informed care, strengths-based leadership, restorative justice, healing centered engagement, as well as techniques for working with system involved youth and high-risk youth. In addition, we share program vision early to ensure buy in and help the team align their personal skills. Leadership development a part of our business strategy and we consider ourselves a learning agency. All staff, volunteers and board members receive coaching, training, and support to develop their potential. PAL follows a Monitor. Measure. Reward. Grow framework to mix in both formal training, peer mentorships, career development, & track development/ growth.

PAL works to actively identify and help resolves issues that impact young people and their families so that they can reach their full potential and become healthy, responsible community members. PAL is known for its ability to adapt to the needs of members and our community. For example, prior to the COVID pandemic, PAL offered a small food pantry. Shortly after the onsite of the health crisis, PAL conducted a member needs assessment and determined that our members needed us to pivot and focus more on provide food and basic needs service. Staff and volunteers worked with partners to provide gift cards, expanded out food program by more the 100% and created a referral program. PAL puts an emphasis on being connected to our community so that we can aware of changes as they happen. Board members, staff, and volunteers are coached to be able to read and act on signals of change to ensure we can adapt, reshape, and redesign as necessary. We use both long term and short-term planning strategies and build in A / B testing to experiment with effective and efficient serviced delivery. Regularly staff and board meetings and community processes ensure we are able to mobilize and respond to changes and the board uses the annual budget committee to anticipate ways to the program to improve.