Champaign Unit 4 School District and the City of Champaign are proud to announce that the LIFT (Leading Individuals and Families to Transformation) Champaign program will launch on November 4, 2021. To celebrate the occasion, the public is invited to attend a ribbon cutting and open house tour of the LIFT Champaign facility at 4:00 pm this Thursday. LIFT is located at 815 N. Randolph St., in the former Novak Academy building. Members of the public who plan to attend are encouraged to RSVP via this webform.
LIFT Champaign is the result of an innovative new partnership between the Champaign Unit 4 School District and the City of Champaign, with Ut 4 serving as the lead entity. LIFT will focus on African American youth in grades K-12, as well as their families, who are experiencing significant challenges academically and personally. The initiative provides trauma-informed care through intensive wraparound support and connections to both school-based and community resources. LIFT is designed to ensure students and families can succeed and thrive despite difficult circumstances or challenges in their scholastic or personal lives.
Unit 4 School Board President Amy Armstrong said, “Unit 4 and the Board of Education is eager to begin this partnership with the City of Champaign and showcase the innovative program LIFT. Students and families need all of us as a community to surround them holistically with supports and services that get to the heart of hurt and trauma. LIFT will bring an organized community team approach that will help students and families heal and thrive – because if one of us is hurting, we all are impacted by that pain. Together we can LIFT each other to achieving goals and success.”
Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen added, “The City is very excited to partner with Unit 4 on this innovative new program which will provide critical support and resources to Champaign’s youth and families in need. I truly expect the LIFT program to live up to its name and to have a transformative impact on our entire community by supporting our youth and families during time of crises and helping them to realize their full potential.”
LIFT Champaign has partnered with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor’s Office of Public Engagement and the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) to measure the success of this new initiative. Unit 4 and City officials are excited about the partnership and are looking forward to the positive impact the initiative will have on the Champaign Community. To learn more about this exciting new initiative, please call 217-351-3800.