Mission

To invoke systematic change for youth and young adults.   

Vision

Led by the lived-experiences of youth, CSYA convenes to address the needs of Opportunity Youth and Young Adults by advocating for system-level change, connecting them to needed support and exposure to wanted wrap around services. Additionally, CSYA works to build the capacity of youth-service providers through research, outreach, and community engagement; empowering young adults to live full and productive lives by identifying best-practices and eradicating system-level barriers.  

Values

    1. Authenticity: Staying true to the spirit of one’s own personality, values, and approach regardless of the pressure applied to act otherwise. Keeping youth voice at the center of our research, advocacy, engagement, and educational activities is authentic to who we are, and we welcome all our Partners and collaborators to hold true to their authenticity as well. 
    2. Advocacy: We work across all three levels of advocacy: self, individual, and systems in our efforts to actualize with our Young Adults. Self-advocacy is important for each of our young people and workers alike.  While we collectively work as a unit to advocate on behalf of our Young Adults and on behalf of systems-level change. 
    3. Collectivism: We invest heavily and strategically in building the capacity of our community to confront implicit racism and other sources of marginalization through collaboration and cooperation such as pooling intellectual, fiscal, technological, and physical resources as to ensure success for us all. 

Goals

  1. Through community engagement, partnership and outreach, the CSYA researches the root causes of disconnectedness, homelessness, and system-involvement for youth and young adults.
  2. To foster a general community awareness of the issues impacting vulnerable youth and young adults and through strategic coordination mobilize our community into action.
  3. To expand the funding for and coordination between youth and young adult support services.

No single organization has the ability to solve any major social problem at scale by itself.  FSG

No single organization, public agency, or philanthropist can address the needs of our community's disconnected youth and young adults. Solutions are possible only through coordinated, collaborative efforts.

Collective Impact Initiative – Source - What Is Collective Impact - Collective Impact Forum

 

Collective impact brings people together in a structured way to achieve social change through a network of community members, organizations, and institutions who advance equity by learning together, aligning, and integrating their actions to achieve population and systems level change.  

 

Conditions of Collective Impact 

  1. It starts with a common agenda. This means coming together to collectively define the problem and create a shared vision to solve it.
  2. It establishes shared measurement. That means tracking progress in the same way, allowing for continuous learning and accountability.
  3. It fosters mutually reinforcing activities. That means integrating the participants’ many different activities to maximize the end result.
  4. It encourages continuous communications. That means building trust and strengthening relationships.
  5. And it has a strong backbone. That means having a team dedicated to aligning and coordinating the work of the group.

 

Strategies of Collective Impact 

  1. Ground the work in data and context, and target solutions.
  2. Focus on systems change, in addition to programs and services.
  3. Shift power within the collaborative.
  4. Listen to and act with community.
  5. Build equity leadership and accountability.

 

5 Pillars of CSYA’s Collective impact 

 

The fruits of our collective impact initiative manifest through our mission as we walk alongside our Youth and Young Adults, helping them bring form to the future they envision. It is through collective impact that we SPARK change as WE:  

 

Support disconnected Youth and Young Adults by providing them a space to be heard, programs to get involved with, and individuals who care and want to continue to invoke change.  

Partner with community organizations, corporations, civic institutions, and individuals to address the needs of disconnected Youth and Young Adults  

Advocate for Youth and Young Adults to both understand and expand the reach of their needs.  

[RE]Engage disconnected Youth and Young Adults to programs, individuals, and services and communities.  

Know… where Youth and Young Adults are, what they want to see and will engage in. What system-level issues need to be addressed and that no single organization, public agency, or philanthropist can address the needs of our community's disconnected youth and young adults. Solutions are possible only through coordinated, collaborative efforts. 

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