Podcasts about promise neighborhoods

Today our guest is Ty Harris the Director of the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Virginia Beach City Public Schools. We talk with Ty about the powerful ‘why' behind his work and how his own high school experiences paved the way for what he does today. Ty shares insights on building a community of practice that fosters a genuine sense of belonging for students by amplifying their voices. He discusses how his team used survey data to identify student needs and, with intentionality, brought students into the conversation to create an environment where everyone feels they belong. Learn More About CharacterStrong:  Learn more about the NEW Tier 3 Solution Access FREE MTSS Curriculum Samples Attend our next live product preview Visit the CharacterStrong Website   Ty Harris is the Director of the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) for Virginia Beach City Public Schools. He leads the implementation of the school division's educational equity plan, as well as efforts to increase cultural competencies for all stakeholders. Harris has a passion for leveraging student voice and increasing awareness and understanding of neurodiversity. Harris started his education journey as a high school social studies teacher in Greenville County, South Carolina. He also taught in Fairfax County, Virginia, before taking a specialist position with the U.S. Department of Education (DoED). While with the DoED, Harris worked with magnet and charter schools, and helped implement the Promise Neighborhoods program under then President Barack Obama. This program is modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone and seeks to end the cycle of poverty with schools as the focal point. After leaving the DoED, Harris moved into school administration where he spent five years as a middle school principal and two as a high school assistant principal. Harris holds a bachelor's degree from Clemson University, a master's degree from George Mason University, an education specialist degree from Old Dominion University and an advanced certification for DEI from Cornell University.

Tune into the next part of our conversation with Reann Gibson, a community-based researcher, community changemaker, and social justice advocate in Boston and beyond. Reann delves further into her experiences with facilitating community-based participatory research and coalition building efforts, asking the critical question, “What does it mean to create spaces with community ownership of change?” particularly in the realm of health and wellbeing research. We explore what it looks like to create spaces where community members have the resources -- and the power -- to co-design research, and other community initiatives, and how collaboration rather than competition can help foster innovation and transformation. Featured guest:Reann Gibson, Community researcher and social justice advocate Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village NetworksRead Reann's latest article on ownership of change at: https://www.rwjf.org/en/insights/blog/2023/06/researchers-build-community-power-to-influence-health-in-gentrifing-neighborhoods.html?channelid=xsp&cid=1003629Register for the 10th National Community Leadership Summit at: https://www.vitalvillagesummit.org/register Additional Resource:Explore the featured resource from the NOW Resource Library, Beyond Lessons In The Field: Community Engagement in Promise Neighborhoods, here: https://www.networksofopportunity.org/resources/Beyond-Lessons-In-The-Field%3A-Community-Engagement-in-Promise-Neighborhoods Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child WellbeingMusic: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In this episode, we are joined by our own Kim McWilliams and University of Evansville's Erin Lewis to discuss the receipt of a $30 million federal grant program through the United States Department of Education that will establish the Evansville's Promise Neighborhood. The aim of the funding is to assist children and youth who are growing up in Promise Neighborhoods, providing them with access to outstanding schools as well as robust family and community support systems. These resources will help prepare them to achieve academic excellence, make the transition to college, and, ultimately, embark on a successful career.

Richard Raya is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Mission Economic Development Agency in San Francisco. In this role, he helps to develop strategies to support the economic development of the Mission District, a historically Latino neighborhood in the heart of the city. Richard is helping to drive systems change across the city of San Francisco, moving from a Promise Neighborhood to a Promise City. Richard has a deep understanding of the challenges that face low-income communities and works to develop sustainable economic solutions that benefit all members of the community. He has over 20 years of experience in community and economic development. HealthCare UnTold honors Richard Raya for being one of our Community Transformers!#Meda.org#promiseneighborhoods#promisecities

Michelle chats with Dreama Gentry, who for the last two decades has led Berea College’s educational outreach into Appalachian Kentucky as the executive director of Partners for Education, which has an annual budget of more than $40 million. Gentry designs and implements projects that build on four core strategies: engaging families; lifting educational aspirations (including an upcoming Rural College Access and Success Summit; building academic skills; and connecting college and career. By leveraging funding from federal programs, such as GEAR UP and Promise Neighborhoods, Partners for Education provides opportunities and support to more than 50,000 rural Kentucky youth. Gentry discusses the importance of access, early education, and committing to a place-based approach in the rural sector. And she talks about a “cradle to career” approach toward education and the importance of establishing a national dialogue on creating healthy rural communities. This episode was sponsored by the Foundation for Rural Services, frs.org; Feonix, feonixmobilityrising.org; and Berea College’s Partners for Education, whose annual Rural College Access and Success Summit brings together approximately 400 teachers, principals, superintendents, college access professionals, and other rural leaders to share ideas and strategies for ensuring rural youth have the opportunity to successfully transition from high school to college and career,  For more information visit www.berea.edu/pfe.

When Black males start to achieve, the mobility rates for our community will pick up exponentially.  That is the opportunity for us, but it is also the risk, if we don’t. Our featured guest today is Jim Shelton. James “Jim” Shelton is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Blue Meridian Partners. In this role, Jim is investigating new areas where significant focused capital can help solve problems at scale and advising Blue Meridian. Jim is also a founding partner of Amandla Enterprises, Senior Advisor for Education at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute. Prior to this, he served as President and Chief Impact Officer of 2U, Inc. and was deputy secretary at the US Department of Education (and head of its office of innovation and improvement) under President Obama. There, he served as the Executive Director of the President’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative and served on and led multiple interagency efforts focused on poverty reduction, economic development, entrepreneurship, and increased opportunity, such as the Investing in Innovation Fund, Promise Neighborhoods, and ConnectED.

On today's episode I talk to policy analyst and data scientist Sam Sinyangwe. Sam grew up in Orlando, FL, and has been involved in organizing and advocacy since he was in high school. He's worked at PolicyLink helping to support a national network of 61 "Promise Neighborhoods" with the goal of building cradle-to-career systems of support for low-income families. He created the "Mapping Police Violence" project, which collects and uses data as a tool for fighting police violence. And most recently, he founded Campaign Zero with DeRay Mckesson and Brittany Packnett. Campaign Zero is a comprehensive organization dedicated to ending police violence by limiting police interventions, improving community interactions, and ensuring accountability. He's also the co-founder of two other activist organizations StayWoke and OurStates, the latter which is dedicated to connecting communities in order to combat the Trump/GOP agenda.  This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on iTunes, follow me on Twitter.

Michael McAfee, EdD, is the Vice President for Programs with PolicyLink in Oakland, CA.  In this capacity, he  joins the Executive Team and Program Teams in strategic planning, policy development, policy campaign strategy, and programmatic design and implementation at the local, state, and national levels. Michael is determined to create conditions that will allow equity to flourish all across America-- just and fair inclusion into a society where all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. Join us for a virtual teach-in on PolicyLink’s evidence-based Promise Neighborhoods Institute (PNI). Based on the Harlem’s Children’s Zone, PNI provides resources to all communities, whether or not they have been awarded a federal grant, including technical support for planning, identifying quality approaches, building partnerships, assessing needs, and many more essentials for successfully building a cradle-to-career pipeline. Call in live at (347) 884-8121. You don't need an account to listen, but, if you want to participate in an online chat, open a listener-only account at https://secure.blogtalkradio.com/register.aspx?type=listener to participate in a live chat. Visit Valeriefleonard.com.  Archived episodes may be found at http://Valeriefleonard.com/NonprofitU, iTunes, Podcast Chart, Blubrry and Stitcher. Download pre-reading and handouts at https://www.scribd.com/doc/289946539/Reading-Assignments-and-Handouts  

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Soon after the new administration begins governing in January, it is expected to propose an ambitious, multipronged urban policy that includes both housing and community-development activities, and the establishment of "Promise Neighborhoods" that provide networks of community-based diversified services for low-income children and youth. Do these two approaches run on parallel tracks, or can they be interwoven so they more effectively stem the cycle of concentrated, intergenerational poverty?This Thursday's Child explores how initiatives that integrate services for high-need young people can complement the kind of comprehensive neighborhood development work now being enacted in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, Detroit, and other cities. Panelists will discuss lessons learned from established community-building initiatives, as well as the research agenda that is still needed to strengthen new and continuing efforts. Speakers examine models of place-based integrative services and analyze how such initiatives can best help young people living in poverty and improve their academic achievement. The role of federal urban policy and programs for children, youth, and families is also discussed.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Soon after the new administration begins governing in January, it is expected to propose an ambitious, multipronged urban policy that includes both housing and community-development activities, and the establishment of "Promise Neighborhoods" that provide networks of community-based diversified services for low-income children and youth. Do these two approaches run on parallel tracks, or can they be interwoven so they more effectively stem the cycle of concentrated, intergenerational poverty?This Thursday's Child explores how initiatives that integrate services for high-need young people can complement the kind of comprehensive neighborhood development work now being enacted in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, Detroit, and other cities. Panelists will discuss lessons learned from established community-building initiatives, as well as the research agenda that is still needed to strengthen new and continuing efforts. Speakers examine models of place-based integrative services and analyze how such initiatives can best help young people living in poverty and improve their academic achievement. The role of federal urban policy and programs for children, youth, and families is also discussed.