Issue Statement & Context
Our County includes 34 municipalities and a large unincorporated service area. This governing structure can be confusing to residents. While residents largely report being aware of the services that their County government provides, more can be done to enhance long-term participation in government decision-making.
Detailed Action Summary
- Provide clear, engaging civics education to residents that focus on the workings of local government to enhance long-term civic participation, particularly among young people.
- Partner with Engage Miami to expand their curriculum and disseminate it to as many young people as possible, all to teach them how local government works and how they can get involved in local decision-making. Young residents are a priority demographic for this Action because civic participation in formative years is an onramp to longer-term deep engagement later in life. Young people engaged as residents today can be tomorrow's homegrown local leaders. Young people are likely to stay engaged if given the right information and tools, and young people civically engaged in their communities are likelier to invest in and stay in Miami-Dade County.
- Work with K-12 education providers (including Miami-Dade County Public Schools, private and parochial schools, and others), institutions of higher learning, Community-Based Organizations that provide youth services and programs, and others to reach young people where they are, particularly those in underserved communities who are least likely to engage in formal civic education and engagement activities.
- Adapt Miami Dade College's Civic Action Scorecard to create a similar incentive for young people to participate in civic engagement activities, meet benchmarks and milestones, and help others do the same in exchange for awards.
- Provide training workshops on the topic of workings of local government to the County's older adult population through Miami-Dade Parks' Active Older Adults program, Senior Centers, and Age Friendly Miami-Dade program.
- Partners will support content production and dissemination, potential funding for associated programming.