Innovate PSL: Autism Awareness & Community Resource Event
The City of Port St. Lucie hosted its first-ever Autism Awareness & Community Resource Event on April 18 at the Community Center to connect families with essential safety tools, services and community partners dedicated to supporting individuals on the autism spectrum.
Aligned with the City’ s strategic initiative to better serve vulnerable populations, Strategic Initiatives and Innovation partnered with the Police Department to support the design of the event with an amazing interdepartmental team and conduct a human-centered design focus group during the event, gathering resident feedback on autism resources in the community.
Residents shared the positive things they see happening around autism support, the challenges they face when finding or using resources and the opportunities they hope to see in the future to improve availability and access. This feedback will be shared with community partners and will help guide how the Police Department can better assist residents, as well as inform how the City can enhance resources and improve next year’ s event.
Community Senior Stat Meeting provides important insights
The Strategic Initiatives & Innovation team and Neighborhood Services Department recently convened senior organizations at its first Community Stat: Understanding the Needs of Seniors to discuss key data trends related to seniors in Port St. Lucie.
These organizations offered key information providing an insightful data snapshot on seniors in our community. Feedback that was gathered will be shared with the Mayor and City Council at Strategic Planning as they consider any changes to their priority of supporting vulnerable populations.
Recent grant awards
City departments work collaboratively through the Grants and Advocacy Team led by Strategic Initiatives and Innovation to support funding for City priorities in alignment with the Strategic Plan. The following grants were recently awarded:
• Keep America Beautiful( KAB) Greatest American Cleanup: Funding in the amount of $ 1,675 for the purchase of 150 T-shirts to reward volunteers and memorialize their efforts in the City ' s year-long pop-up clean up initiative for America ' s 250th anniversary. www. CityofPSL. com
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