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Greetings!
This spring, UTEC youth organizer and Lowell High School senior
Carline Kirksey was a co-panelist at Harvard's "Youth Transformation and Development through Organizing," for the Community Organizing and School Reform Conference held at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She shared how youth organizing has allowed her to change our world, and it also allows her to transform herself.
Our young people's successes are UTEC's favorite news to share, and our staff members' accomplishments are a close second. In the last few months, UTEC's staff experts have been featured at professional and academic conferences related to each of our core programs:
- Organizing Work: UTEC Youth Organizer Carline Kirksey
- Job Training: Director of Workforce Development and Social Enterprise, Derek Mitchell
- Outcomes Measurement: Director of Evaluation & Learning, Zenub Kakli
- Youth Violence Prevention: Executive Director, Gregg Croteau, and Streetworker, Johnny Chheng: Attorney General's Youth Violence Prevention Summit, Bentley University
- Case Management: Transitional Coach Supervisor, Leslie Rivera, "Reconnecting Disconnected and Disconnecting Youth," Harvard Graduate School of Education Alumni of Color Conference
- Education: Alternative Diploma Program featured in Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education's "MassGrad Minute" publication
UTEC is honored to be recognized by our peers as an innovative, ambitious, and outcomes-focused urban youth development agency. Thank you for your continued support of UTEC's intentional and evidence-based work, and the resulting social and economic success of our young people.
Sincerely,
Gregg Croteau, MSW
Executive Director
PS: For more stories from our young people, make sure you check out the recent Boston Globe profile of three young people in our Workforce Development program.
PPS: Want to hear from our young people and staff experts firsthand? Join us on Nov. 13th for the Grand Opening of our new and improved youth center! Click here for details.
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Social Enterprise and Job Training
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Gov. Deval Patrick visits UTEC's Fresh Roots Culinary Enterprise (2011)
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UTEC Workforce Development Director Derek Mitchell was busy at the first annual Social Enterprise Ecosystem and Economic Development (SEEED) Summit hosted at Brown University. In addition to sitting on a panel, "Social Enterprise for Jobs," with other national leaders from job creating social enterprises, he facilitated a working group with Jake Jacobs from ROCA on behalf of the national work group SE4Jobs.
SE4Jobs is made up of over 100 social enterprises across the country. It is is dedicated to creating an on-line platform to provide support for nascent and growing social enterprises that will fuel the industry of job creation for hard-to-employ populations throughout the country. Derek is a member of the Massachusetts chapter of the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA). UTEC's various social enterprises are recognized across the country for their work.
UTEC is specifically investigating their capacity to provide additional resources for nonprofits, while generating economic opportunities for targeted populations (including at-risk youth, single parents, the disabled, the chronically homeless, and re-entry groups).
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Outcomes Measurement
Evaluation and Learning Director Zenub Kakli, Ed. D. and Workforce Development Director Derek Mitchell presented in front of a packed session at the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network Annual Conference. "Better Together: Using Data for Collaborative Program Improvement" discussed UTEC's experiences with transitioning into an outcome-oriented organization. Derek and Zenub fielded a host of questions about the ways in which UTEC's model and organizational learning is informed by the data that we gather. Non-profit leaders from across the state rated the presentation as both 'inspiring' and 'valuable'.
UTEC continues to expand its outcome-based data measurement and is excited to share our best practices with our community partners. More about our evaluation work is coming in our July e-news. Stay tuned!
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Transformation through Community Organizing
"Youth Organizing doesn't just help me change the world - it helps me change myself. While doing organizing I've learned how to do public speaking, how to facilitate meetings and how to manage strategic meetings with public leaders. These skills do not just help me in our campaign work, but they help me be an active leader in my classroom and at home with my brothers and sisters," Carline told more than 100 attendees.
"With the help of UTEC's Organizing Program I have been accepted into three different colleges and plan on continuing this empowering work," she added.
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