Greater Kc Linc Inc

Caring communities helping students, parents and neighbors: linc provides support services for schools and neighborhoods in multiple school districts. Major efforts include building community schools, operating before and after school programs in area districts and charter schools, implementing federal 21st century community learning center grants, and operating the area's community partnership initiative. Other smaller, similar programs are also included in the category. In total, as of june 30, 2024, there were 52 caring community sites across seven school districts which include two charter schools and one community center. Linc offers supports for students, families and neighborhoods through the caring communities' system. These supports include help with housing, utilities, community health, food insecurity, education and other community identified needs. Before and after school care is one programming component for many caring communities' locations. Currently, 45 school sites offer linc-facilitated before and after school activities. These programs operate every day school is in session during the regular school year, with summer programming historically offered at a reduced number of sites. In all cases, linc strives to work closely with the communities, districts, and individual youth and families to ensure each site's programming is supportive of that neighborhood's unique needs and goals.

Community assistance: the caring communities concept is built around a holistic approach to resolving individual, family and neighborhood issues. Eliminating the obvious issue often requires addressing several that are much less obvious. To accomplish this, linc facilitates caring community sites which offer services such as utility assistance, grandparents as parents support, food pantries, clothes closets and other supports applicable to the needs of each site's residents.

Work skills: under a contract with the state of missouri to support its missouri work assistance initiative (mwa), lincworks is responsible for serving unemployed and underemployed adults in the counties of jackson, clay and platte. These counties cover the kansas city, missouri metropolitan area and surrounding region. Through development, planning, contracting and monitoring community-based welfare-to-work systems, lincworks focuses on job retention issues, including child care, job readiness, personal skills, employer training and public transportation. Childcare education and support: linc has a long history of working closely with local childcare providers and other organizations who share a common vision of quality childcare. As an integrated community-wide asset, the childcare service network holds high value not only to family's dependent upon it, but to the metropolitan area as a whole. A critical component in quality care is training. Educare services offered by linc represent one of the first steps in a range of training opportunities available for childcare providers in the kansas city area. Critical skillsets and on-site technical support are made available to providers with the goal of them being able to operate safe, viable, businesses and to increase their desire for more advanced training, accreditation and perhaps pursue a degree in early childhood. Educare is designed to enhance the early childhood development of children between the ages of zero to three years old. The program offers training, educational resources and home visits to family care providers located in jackson, clay and platte counties in missouri, and addresses core competencies for early care and education professionals.