PRI's 5 Strategic Directions

Navigators are PRI volunteers who help people in poverty access area resources. "General" navigators have a broad knowledge; "specialized" navigators may have expertise in one area such as health care or education.  This program needs:

• Role descriptions for both general and specialized navigators;
• Recruitment, training and support for navigators;
• Current, accurate lists of available navigators.

PRI seeks to support and connect the many existing mentoring activities in the community and offer navigators as resources. Initiatives in this area may include: 

• Documenting current mentoring programs in the region;
• Determining how mentors and navigators can be mutually supportive;
• Collecting success stories about the benefits of mentoring.

PRI seeks to educate area citizens about issues related to poverty and also to provide learning opportunities for those in poverty to help them improve their lives. Many initiatives are already underway to achieve these goals, including:

• Saturday Specials
• Poverty Simulations
• Opportunities Conferences
• Millionaires Club
• Presentations to service clubs and to targeted audiences
• Surveys such as the Insight Survey and Cost of Poverty survey
• Region II Poverty Conference, May 5-6, 2009
• Neigborhood meetings

The PRI issue groups identified many policy issues related to poverty which might benefit from advocacy at the local, state and national level. This is a newly-identified initiative for PRI and some ideas and strategies include:

• Wage and benefit reform;
• Reform of policies which create a "dis-incentive" to increase earnings;
• Post-foster care programs;
• Homelessness prevention;
• Parenting education;
• Early childhood development and promotion.

PRI seeks to communicate with the community at large about poverty issues and with people in poverty about PRI resources and success stories.  Strategies include:

• Media stories, advertising, website
• Publications such as the "Report to the Community"