K-Town Hosts Knoxville Community Leaders at CDF Haley Farm K-Town

Youth Empowerment Network hosted a daylong “Planning Advance” for 35 community stakeholders, family members and youth, staff, and grants management team members at CDF Haley Farm, a lovely 157-acre rural retreat that once belonged to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Roots, Alex Haley. The Farm, owned by K-Town community partner Children’s Defense Fund, is a year-round retreat center where young leaders, social activists and policymakers can brainstorm strategies that benefit children and youth. In many ways the event was a homecoming, because CDF Haley Farm was the site of a 2002 retreat held by the Knoxville Youth Transition Council, an ongoing community coalition that led to the creation of K-Town.

Apple orchards in bloom, Southern home cooking, rocking chairs on the porch overlooking the magnificent architecture of May Lin, and a tree-lined pond with nesting geese--all this formed a soothing, inspiring backdrop for serious talk about the needs of youth and families.
Moderator and long-time Systems of Care advocate Christina Coker Young led the group in a discussion of how to build a seamless web of services and supports for Knox County youth ages 14-21 with mental illness, as well as their families. With words and hand-drawn pictures, community leaders created their”2020” vision of a comprehensive Knox County System of Care as it should look ten years from now. One young adult present at the event called it “A great big circle of Awesome!”
The outcome of that event was the formation of a 40-member Advance Team that will meet bimonthly over the coming year to build the K-Town Youth Empowerment Network.

Check out our photo album from the day here.