Promoting Effective Community Engagement

Our 2022 cohort of Community Partner Co-Educator Fellows (CPCE) completed their fellowships this spring, connecting with community peers to share expertise, and  to build an understanding of how to work with USF students! In this week’s blog post, CPCE Hattie Wyatt discusses the important work her organization, Young Community Developers (YCD) is doing in the San Francisco community, and expresses her gratitude for the CPCE program.

Young Community Developers takes a holistic approach to empower residents of all ages in achieving economic mobility and hopes to increase opportunities for youth through this University of San Francisco fellowship program. The YCD team represents our diverse community, reflecting a broad range of ethnic identities and age groups and dedicated to empowering San Francisco’s underserved African-American communities with the tools and resources to be successful in their academic and career pursuits.  We provide wrap around services from re entry justice services, to tay youth, case management, housing and workforce assistance and believe in in the holistic approach and helping our families as whole so they are whole.

YCD looks forward to offering future connections for students looking for workforce opportunities along their professional journey. The partnership is designed to help students grow and begin developing tools for engaging in decision making practices that are conscious of power and lead to more equitable outcomes and experiences. Our Vision is to create more powerful, positive, and sustainable changes in the lives of students so that they one day may serve the urban communities of San Francisco. YCD has over 50 years experiences providing this direct service and look forward to partnering with USF in future community projects.

On behalf of Young Community Developers, I would like to say Thank-you USF for a wonderful direct opportunity to explore community engagement from the students environment as well as all the providers who were able to share there space. Throughout the sessions we provided and offered not just information on the impacts of effective community engagement. The fellowship gives a students a chance to work with and hear from variety  of partners and other non profits in San Francisco.  A chance to get to learn more about the mission, to the deliverables and a bit about the populations being served. Who YCD serves and why we serve is what makes community engagement impactful.