Interweaving for Deeper Impact
Strategic Priority 1: Deepen the impact of UNP-supported partnerships through a stronger interweaving
of west side neighborhoods, the University of Utah, and influential institutions around
shared questions, priorities, and successful models.
Depth and Sustainability: Identify partnerships and strategies that are effective and have momentum. Focus on deepening that work and creating structures to support partnership sustainability.
Partnership Capacity: Support partners and partnerships in building their capacity to take on roles related to convening, goal setting, assessment, and evaluation.
Horizontal & Vertical Integration: Increase communication, resource sharing, and collaboration horizontally—across partnerships, sectors of the community, and stakeholders—and vertically, across levels of decision-making.
Knowledge Building: Deepen our shared knowledge base through community-engaged research focused on the work and priorities of partnerships.
Key Indicator: # of active, collaborative connections within and across partnerships.
UNP’s Focus to Include West Valley
By: Jennifer Mayer-Glenn, Director, UNP & Special Assistant to the President for Campus-Community Partnerships, University of Utah
For nearly 20 years, UNP and west side residents have built deep relationships and become trusted partners. Collectively, we are addressing systemic barriers to educational success and bringing together University and west side people and resources in reciprocal learning, action, and benefit. The geographic area of this work has been an intentional “hyper-local” focus on the west side of Salt Lake City (SLC). As time has passed, many of the residents with whom UNP has partnered have moved from SLC to West Valley City (WVC) and other parts of the Salt Lake Valley.
Over the years, UNP has been encouraged and asked by community leaders and UNP partners living and working in WVC to commit to the WVC community in much the same way it has in the west side of SLC. More recently, the U has increased commitment to authentic engagement in west side communities throughout Salt Lake Valley. With that goal in mind, funding was provided to UNP by the Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation this past summer and Erick Garcia was hired as the new WVC Initiative Fellow. Erick has been learning how UNP works and building relationships in WVC. His position has since shifted to WVC Partnership Manager, and he is working hard to deepen relationships and build partnerships in WVC. President Taylor Randall has demonstrated his support by providing funding to UNP to bring Kimberly Schmit on board the UNP team. Her role is to guide community listening and asset mapping in WVC, as well as to provide opportunities for others to learn how UNP works through its highly successful model.
It is key to UNP’s mission that our work supports community leaders and builds on the work they are already doing in WVC. As such, our primary goal is to listen and learn from community leaders. Their input will guide UNP staff as we grow our relationships and partnerships in WVC. We continue an aim to engage in building long term partnerships while working toward equitable systemic change.
As for our current partners, you, our work in the west side of SLC will continue and grow as well. In the future, watch for opportunities to guide us as we grow.
If you would like to share your thoughts, or if you are interested in getting involved in building partnerships in SLC or WVC, please reach out to us at unp@partners.utah.edu, or connect directly with Erick Garcia at erick.garcia@partners.utah.edu.
JUST LIKE ME: Establishing a Framework for Community Capacity Building & Wellbeing
By: Saolo Betham, Community Leadership Partnership Manager, UNP; Wisam Khudhair, Community
Capacity & Wellbeing Partnership Manager, UNP
Our communities share rich cultural histories and powerful stories of immigrant and refugee families who now call the west side home. Yet, issues of housing, health, wellness, employment, safety, environment, community development, civic engagement, and language acquisition often present barriers that widen the equity gap for west side families. Community capacity and wellbeing partnerships bring together residents, community organizations, and higher education partners to develop supportive resources in these areas.
Joining UNP this year in support of community capacity and wellbeing partnerships is Wisam Khudhair. Wisam brings passion to UNP’s partnership work and a willingness to listen and build trust within communities. He shares, “I love the diversity in my neighborhood. My neighbors are from different backgrounds, come from different countries as immigrants and refugees – just like me.” His goal in establishing a framework for community capacity building draws on his lived experiences as a refugee from Iraq, graduate of the University of Utah, and current Rose Park resident.
Wisam reflects on his journey as both a blessing and a pain. He recalls, “It was a blessing to be part of a top-ranked academic program in the nation. However, it was painful as a refugee from a different country. I worked twice as hard as any other student and learned the hard way. I was always being reactive rather than proactive in seeking out supportive resources.” In working together with west side communities, Wisam hopes to raise the visibility of current partnerships and improve access to resources. This year, his focus will be to learn more about immigrant and refugee experiences within systems, to establish a framework for increased professional opportunities, to increase access to higher education, and narrow the equity gap for all families who call the west side home.
تشترك مجتمعاتنا في تاريخ ثقافي غني وقصص قوية عن عائلات المهاجرين واللاجئين الذين يطلقون الآن على الجانب الغربي وطنهم. ومع ذلك، فإن قضايا الإسكان، والصحة، والعافية، والتوظيف، والسلامة، والبيئة، وتنمية المجتمع، والمشاركة المدنية، واكتساب اللغة غالبًا ما تشكل حواجز توسع فجوة المساواة بين العائلات الغربية. تجمع شراكات القدرات المجتمعية والرفاهية بين السكان والمنظمات المجتمعية وشركاء التعليم العالي لتطوير موارد داعمة في هذه المجالات.
ينضم وسام خضير إلى UNP هذا العام لدعم قدرات المجتمع وشراكات العافية. يجلب وسام بالشراكة لدعم شركاء UNP خبرة في العمل مع المجتمعات. يقول: «أحب التفاعل مع الجميع. يعجبني أن خلفيات وثقافات مختلفة تجعلنا نتعلم من بعضنا البعض، وثقافاتنا وشخصياتنا تجعل العالم مكانًا أفضل للعيش فيه». تتمثل إحدى طرقه لدعم قدرات المجتمع في بناء قدراتهم على إيجاد موارد يمكنهم الوصول إليها.
تأمل وسام في سنواته في خدمة اللاجئين قائلًا: «يمكنك رؤية حالتهم عندما يأتون من بلدان أخرى خائفين وغير مستعدين». يضيف وسام أنه كان يتعاطف معهم لأنه عاش تجربة مماثلة عندما انتقل من العراق إلى الولايات المتحدة. ومن خلال العمل مع المجتمعات الغربية، يأمل وسام في زيادة مواردهم للوصول إلى الخدمات والفرص. كما يرى أن تمكين هذه المجتمعات يبدأ ببناء الثقة والاستماع إلى احتياجاتها والعمل معها، وليس من أجلها.
Visit partners.utah.edu/partnership-areas/capacity-building/ to learn more about the New American Academic Network partnership.
THE CASE MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATE: Equity, Inclusion, and Global Engagement
By: Teresa Molina, Associate Director, UNP
As we approach two years of the pandemic shock, UNP reviews the impact that the low-profile Case Management Certificate (CMC) has had on alleviating some of the most salient weaknesses that our health systems showed in serving minority populations in Utah and nationwide. Launched in 2011, CMC and its partners targeted community leaders and community-based organizations providing services and advocacy for minority populations of immigrant and refugee backgrounds in Utah. Primarily included were individuals with bilingual skills who were leading grassroots efforts to provide culturally and linguistically responsive human services or who were working as interpreters at those and other agencies.
A decade later, those individuals, along with community health workers and Certified Peer Support Specialists, became the heart of the response by larger systems to reach diverse communities hit disproportionally by the pandemic. This happened either through direct hiring or through contracts with community-based organizations. The 2020 and 2021 cohorts of the CMC included over 70 students from seven countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, Mexico, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United States). Students were admitted based on their links to local and global academic and bilingual partnerships and ethnic-based community organizations.
Another fortunate turn that the CMC experienced was the 2018 decision to offer the course fully online, due to the increasing involvement of international partnerships that were introduced via local community leaders and University of Utah Learning Abroad programs. The CMC has also proven to be sustainable through faculty shifts at the U’s College of Social Work. The support of academic partners in the college, and the registration and record keeping provided by the U’s Continuing Education and Community Engagement department, have helped the CMC program navigate through tumultuous times, throughout which UNP has remained a foundational partner.
The Case Management Certificate is not only an avenue for better employment and services to local and global communities (graduates have enrolled in higher education as undergraduate and graduate students both locally and internationally), it is also a local-global engagement opportunity for current students at the U. Comprehensive program evaluation and curriculum revision are underway in partnership with MSW (Master of Social Work) research and teaching interns and leaders from community-based organizations.
All of these have been natural shifts for the CMC. They have been all positive changes thanks to the establishment of common goals and the trust between campus and community partners, a willingness to listen to all voices, and sustained commitment to make them happen.
The CMC program has enriched the University of Utah community while creating social innovation that remains attentive to the strengths of communities that are often seen as “in need.” It is time for Utah to embrace its demographic changes through these strategic lenses to continue fostering a thriving community and transforming the community pathways to higher education and beyond.
Visit the Case Management Program Certificate online at Bridging Across Borders to learn more about the partnership.
By: Claudia Loayza, Graduate Teaching Assistant, City & Metropolitan Planning, U of U Dane Hess, Teacher, Glendale Middle School
Over the last several months, youth from Dane Hess’s Glendale Middle School classroom have been thinking about their community, what matters most to them, and how this applies to the reimagining of the now abandoned Seven Peaks Water Park. Although, to truly be transformative requires more than ideas. It requires partnership with people who are also willing to challenge and reinvent how city planning decisions have traditionally been made.
This rich collaboration with Dane, Glendale Middle Students, SLC Public Lands, Design Workshop, and Claudia Loayza (Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs and City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah) is a demonstration of what it means to work in a way that co-creates with and centers the voices of youth, instead of dismissing them. Through a variety of asset-mapping, creative writing, and model-building activities, youth generated an imaginative, insightful, and affirming vision of what they want to see in the evolution of the former water park, as well as what matters in their lives and the community generally.
This project was a perfect example of a community-engaged partnership. Jarred Martinez used his community connections to enhance our experience in the classroom by linking with Claudia Loayza and her expertise. Her unique perspectives and knowledge amplified our project and shaped how we perceived it. Students felt empowered by this process and I imagine their confidence growing in being able to shape their built environments moving forward. They will also have more skills to be able to influence their local officials in their decision-making. ~ Dane Hess
From my experience with these students and in my growing knowledge as an aspiring city planner and engagement advocate, the key to a transformative practice is to foster safe, brave, and authentic spaces that focus on connecting with people rather than collecting ideas. We tend to rush through the planning process to reach an outcome or meet a deadline, when instead we should be going slow and at the pace of community trust. This requires a mindset shift and the willingness to invest time, resources, and emotional capacity into creating engagement mechanisms that cater to multiple creatives processes and include those who may not have what some may deem “formal organization or influence”, but bring human-centered ideas and collective memories that the entire community can resonate with. ~ Claudia Loayza
Learn more about Claudia’s placemaking work and the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs’ special project, “Multicultural Placemaking & Mapping Community Belonging | Many Stories, One Utah” online at Multicultural Placemaking & Mapping Community Belonging | Many Stories, One Utah.