On October 3, the Clare Rose Foundation and San Diego Creative Youth Development Network hosted a day-long summit to convene local practitioners, youth leaders, and funders for a day of professional development. We celebrated the successes and shared the challenges of local creative youth development (CYD) programs over the last year.
Facilitators of the day’s workshops and discussions included Darren Isom, Partner at The Bridgespan Group, Fatima Muhammad, Director of Youth & Family Solutions at Search Institute, Denise Montgomery, Founder and Principal of CultureThrive, Matt D’Arrigo, Director of Creative Youth Development at Clare Rose Foundation, and Dairrick Khalil Hodges, Director of The SOULcial Workers.
More than 40 local CYD practitioners joined Fatima for a full-day session focused on Search Institute’s pioneering research on building and strengthening meaningful relationships with young people that support their positive development. Participants found great value in the workshop, noting that it validated their daily approaches and gave them language they can use to use to explain and describe their work.
Half-day sessions were also held for Youth and Funders.
Youth leaders came together for a peer-planned workshop, led by Dairrick and members of the San Diego Creative Youth Development Network’s emerging youth council, to identify key factors of equitable youth-adult partnerships and develop tools to activate relationships with adults that enable emerging and existing leaders to work side by side.
Funders engaged in a discussion about disruptive philanthropic strategies to bring more diverse and equitable funding to community-based arts organizations, facilitated by Darren, Denise, and Matt. They examined how collective efforts to shift funding practices can influence and inform the national agenda on CYD, and learn how they can leverage collaboration and work together to maximize impact and achieve goals.
In the evening, a cross-sector audience of CYD stakeholders gathered for a reception and panel discussion led by youth who participate in CYD organizations throughout San Diego County. The conversation centered on power – who has it, who needs it, and how we can share it. Youth also showcased their work through dance, spoken word, music, photography, and video productions, and issued a call to action for CYD professionals to continue examining the ways we center youth voice in our work.
Through the support of the Clare Rose Foundation, San Diego is the first community to implement the National Action Blueprint in its entirety at a local level. The San Diego Creative Youth Development Network has made a commitment to harnessing their collective strength to build the field of Creative Youth Development in order to provide more equitable access to young people in the region.