Our Mission

P.A.V.E. is a non-profit organization that is centered around improving the connections between adults and youth. We strive to help parents create an open dialog to discuss the issues that face our youth in the 21st century and ways to assist. Our primary focus is to provide parents with resources to use in their families that build confidence and help resolve conflicts that hinder success in the younger population so that they see their future as positive and thriving.

Our mission is simple. To engage, empower and equip parents with the necessary skills and resources to strengthen family connectedness and to reduce the rate of violence among youth and young adults.

Our History

In 2021, a group of parents and other concerned individuals with a background in services, came together to create a strategy with the goal to address the violence among our youth and young adults. The Baptist Fellowship Center in Louisville, KY serves as the fiscal sponsor of PAVE and provides meeting and program space along with the management of resources and access to operating support services.

Our Goals

We have many goals that we seek to achieve like self-sufficient families, safer neighborhoods and financial stability. We strive to attain these goals by engaging parents/ caregivers through open-discussion style meetings to:

• Encourage positive self-image, self-worth, and self-care of themselves and their families to support and strengthen family function
• Be actively involved in building their family's financial future
• Communicate more openly with their children to improve supporting their opportunities to build social and emotional competence
• Advocate for their families, whenever an wherever possible, to promote positive decisions and make their communities safe and supportive for their youth and their families

Our Strategy

We know that the close relationship's in a person's life can either increase or reduce the risk of experiencing violence as a victim or a perpetrator. A young person's closest social circle--peers, partner's and family members--influences their behaviors and contributes to their experience. Risk factors at the family level include: authoritarian childrearing attitudes, low parental involvement, poor family functioning, and parental substance abuse or history of criminal involvement. Peer and social risk factors include involvement in gangs and social rejections by peers.

PAVE's strategic approach will seek to strengthen parental and family connectedness through a thoughtfully developed 12-concept curriculum.

Curriculum

PAVE will partner with organizations and individuals to engage 20-25 parents(per site) annually and provide a 12-month cycled curriculum. This will be implemented in an weekly open-discussion based group meeting, quarterly scheduled family activities and events as well as through peer-to-peer discussion sessions.

Our Results

PAVE's desired outcome is to see an positive increase of general knowledge of how to making better choices and developing personal goals improve the lives of our participants. We conduct monthly surveys at the end of each concept discussion to gauge what the participants fell they have learned. And we celebrate their successes and support their changes.

In our current cohort (2023) we currently have over 100 signed up participants. We are presently in two locations, Parkhill and Parkland. Attendance has been steady and growing at our Parkland site. We are striving to make the same progress at our Parkhill site. Check out our total attendance numbers for the year: