The community assessment

The community assessment is how Minneapolis measures whether the city is working for its young people — scoring progress against the UNICEF Child-Friendly City goal areas and listening to what children, youth, and parents say matters. The interactive dashboard holds the live data; the sections below explain what it looks at.

Goal areas

Scored against UNICEF building blocks

UNICEF's Child-Friendly Cities Initiative defines what a city that upholds children's rights looks like — a set of goal areas covering whether every young person is safe and included, can access quality services like health care and education, grows up in a healthy environment, has space to play and take part in community life, and is treated fairly regardless of background.

The community assessment measures Minneapolis against those goal areas, turning a broad international framework into a local scorecard. Rather than a single grade, it shows where the city is doing well and where children and young people are still being underserved, so the Youth Coordinating Board and its partners can direct attention and resources to the gaps. The live scores and how they change over time live in the dashboard.

Two lenses

Youth and parent input, side by side

The assessment deliberately gathers two perspectives: young people speaking for themselves, and parents and caregivers speaking about their children. Both are collected and shown together so they can be compared directly.

That comparison matters because young people and adults often see the same city differently — a neighborhood an adult considers safe may not feel safe to a teenager, and a young person may value supports a parent overlooks. Seeing the two lenses next to each other surfaces those gaps instead of hiding them behind a single number, and keeps children's own voices at the center of the picture. Young people's responses to the Safety Perceptions Survey feed directly into this data.

Voice and supports

Participation and day-to-day supports

The assessment separates two different questions. The first is voice — whether children and young people have a real say in the decisions that shape their lives, from their schools and programs to city policy. The second is day-to-day supports — the concrete conditions a young person needs to thrive, such as regular health checkups, enough food at home, and reliable internet access.

Keeping the two distinct means the city can tell the difference between a young person who is being heard but going without basic supports, and one whose material needs are met but who has no say in decisions. A child-friendly city has to deliver on both, and measuring them separately keeps either one from being mistaken for the other.