Welcome to part one of our series Nourishing Community: Cultivating Fellowship and Vision in Youth Services. We hope you enjoyed good food and community during the winter break! The beginning of any year is often filled with set priorities including reporting deadlines, project kick-offs, and special events. And it is also the time to identify goals and pivots for the year ahead.
Preparing and sharing meals, as we do so much during the fall and winter seasons, can offer a comfortable and cozy reflection on how our metaphorical program table is set. This January we are taking stock of what is already in the pantry by evaluating what we have now and what is needed to build capacity; we are assessing the tools we already have to cook up this vision, including the expertise of our committed staff, members and partners; and we are taking a look at what may have worked in the past but no longer serves current goals and collaborative efforts.
What type of meal are we offering or, in non-food terms, what is the vision for this year? Where can we shift and evolve our recipes or our approaches toward this aim based on what we’ve learned in the past? Most organizations have a strategic plan and mission that answers this, but everyone in the kitchen plays an essential role.
Consider how your personal efforts, interests, and flavors contribute to a collective intention. In other words, what will be your unique contribution and how are you supporting connections among guests (including the plus one who is meeting everyone for the first time)?
For example, at Youth Collaboratory, we are interested in creating collaboration between programs working to prevent and address human trafficking, programs providing mentoring services, and programs working alongside youth who are unhoused. How can we set a table that nourishes this collaborative vision while balancing the individual aims of each of these programs? A few of the questions we use to guide our efforts are:
- Grounded: What is our capacity to commit to this vision?
- Resourceful: What are the tools we already have in support of this vision?
- Adaptive: What can we do differently to support this specific vision?
- Honest: What practices that create barriers toward this vision can we let go of?
The beginning of the year is a great time to consider if voices are missing from the table and to begin investing in relationships that lead to opportunities for collaboration. More on this in Part 2 (coming soon)! For now, let’s be sure we take a look at the current guest list, the neighbors and friends we want to include, and check in on their menu favorites as well, so we prepare and offer a table where all are welcomed.
Share your thoughts with the team by emailing us at community@youthcollaboratory.org.
This toolkit is being released as a newsletter series in January 2024, with each module being delivered to inboxes every Tuesday morning. Learn more about new training and funding opportunities, news and policy updates, and how we can collectively strengthen outcomes for youth and young adults. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest delivered straight to your inbox.
