Community-Designed and led models
This discussion highlighted innovative community-designed and led models of care that seek to build service capacity outside of formal public systems. We explored the design processes and financing mechanisms that are necessary to capacitate efforts outside of public systems. Our guest discussants were Jessica Nowlan and Kari Croft of Beloved Community.
Beloved Youth is the first pilot project of Beloved Community Housing and has been designed out of the belief that all young people deserve a loving and supportive home, resources, and support grounded in their own self-determination. Beloved is piloting in three California counties to build a continuum of care and support outside the existing systems, and to resource young people, their families (including families of choice), and the community.
Key Takeaways:
Relationships and credibility undergird the effort — Decades of community advocacy work, led by directly impacted leaders at the Young Women’s Freedom Center (YWFC), built deep knowledge of community needs and system failures, and positioned the organization as knowledgeable and trusted leaders with community, system, and philanthropic partners.
Crisis can catalyze new solutions — As community organizers and advocates, direct service provision was not part of YWFC’s mission. But the pandemic demanded that they step up to support their community in new ways by leveraging philanthropic resources to create emergency housing options.
Lessons and skills forged through crisis informed long-term plan of action — When YWFC’s emergency housing response wound down, approximately 50 residents chose the streets rather than public housing options, spurring YWFC leaders to create a long-term plan for developing a continuum of care housing model.
Designing a housing plus model based on direct community experience — The Beloved Community Housing model provides a 3-year commitment to each young person/family, and incorporates economic stability support (up to $65K per family per year), self-determination coaching, and credible messenger support. Read more at www.belovedcommunityhousing.org.
Expanded mission required expanded infrastructure — Leadership designed and implemented a new organizational structure that could continue to support their ongoing community organizing and advocacy work as well as the new direct service arm of their work. A back-end office was established and staffed with a central operations team of CFO, COO, etc., with three fiscally sponsored organizations under this umbrella.
Data and evaluation are essential capacities — The organization had spent years building internal capacity and external partnerships with Vera and NYU, which has been essential for building the case for support, designing and implementing the model.
This virtual learning series for all YTFG members took place in September and October of 2023 as a lead-in to the Fall YTFG meeting in Albuquerque. The series was designed to build off learnings related to "preventing systems involvement" from YTFG's Spring 2023 meeting and deepen our learnings around equity and well-being.
Learning Series Desired Outcomes:
To learn from innovative community leaders what it means to build true community-driven systems of care that support youth and family well-being
To understand more concretely what communities want and need to be in partnership with systems & to examine elements of successful partnerships
To explore how systems can approach community relationships to gain trust, build capacity, and promote greater investment in upstream approaches
To identify additional learning opportunities for YTFG members