Alameda Youth Care Project

For this assignment, you are asked to describe a proposed project intended to benefit children, youth, and/or families in a particular area of CYC practice, building on and mobilizing the assets in your community. The project you propose should be discussed in terms of the ecological, strength-based, and developmental perspectives explored throughout CYC 100A. In designing your project, you may choose the same area of CYC practice that you focused on in Assignment 2, or you may choose another area of CYC practice that interests you. Whichever area of CYC practice you focus on, remember that the focus of this assignment is not to describe an existing project in your chosen area of practice, but to envision a new project, and to ground that project in a description of your community's strengths. To complete this assignment, use the model presented in Kretzmann and McKnight's (2005) publication,Discovering community power: A guide to mobilizing local assets and your organization's capacity. You will complete the assignment in two steps. Keeping your chosen area of CYC practice in mind, you will first complete a community asset map. To develop the community asset map, use the model provided on page 16 as a guide to researching and mapping your community's assets. You are not expected to produce an exhaustive community map for this assignment. Nonetheless, in accordance with the model provided, you should identify a total of at least 10 associations, physical spaces, institutions, individuals, and businesses in the local economy (aim for two in each category) that could be assets in developing your CYC project. You will discuss aspects of your community map in your final paper, but you will include the map itself as an Appendix. To create an electronic version of your map, you can adapt the map on page 16 of Kretzmann & McKnight (2005), or you can use the free mapping software located at http://vue(dot)tufts(dot)edu/about/index.cfm Next, you will design and describe a CYC project (e.g., a community-based drop-in program for street-involved youth, an outreach for immigrant parents and children, for adolescent girls with eating disorders) that (a) responds to the needs and strengths of the chosen population; (b) builds on existing community assets; and (c) has the potential to strengthen the community as a whole. You can use the questions on pages 4-14 of Section 1 of Discovering Community Power as a way of assessing the extent to which your proposed project builds on community strengths (associations, physical spaces, institutions, individuals, local businesses). Once you have completed your community asset map and designed your project, write a paper of 1500-2000 words (6-8 typed, double-spaced, 12 pt font pages, plus references). The table below can serve as a rough guide for organizing your paper: Section of Paper Approximate Length of Section Provide a brief introduction that identifies your chosen area of practice, the population you are focusing on, and the project you are proposing. 150-200 words Describe your community, including relevant demographic and statistical information on your community, but focusing primarily on the community map you developed (the map itself will be an Appendix to your paper). 350-500 words Describe your proposed project, including the area of CYC practice it relates to, the strengths and challenges of the population served, the purpose of the project, and how the project builds on community assets. In discussing the relationship of your project to community assets, discuss at least one association, physical space, institution, individual, and local business that you identified in your community asset map. Be as specific as possible in describing how your project builds on the community assets you are focusing on. 500-600 words Discuss the relevance of your project in terms of the ecological, strength-based, and developmental perspectives, and in relation to theories and processes of individual and social change. In your discussion, cite at least four relevant course readings, articles, book chapters, and/or credible websites. 350-500 words Include a brief conclusion, in which you summarize the intent of your proposed project, how it builds on community assets, and its relevance in the context of contemporary CYC practice. 150-200 words Save your assignment as either a Word or RTF document with the filename "Assignment5-yourname" and put it in the Assignment Drop Box. Grading Criteria: Content (15 marks) -Clearly identifies area of practice, population of focus, and intent of project -Describes the community characteristics and strengths, based on a community asset map in the Appendix that identifies at least 10 associations, physical spaces, institutions, individuals, and local businesses -Proposes a proposed project that clearly responds to the needs and strengths of the chosen population and the community -Identifies the relationship of the proposed project to at least five associations, physical spaces, institutions, individuals, and/or local businesses -Provides a clear discussion of the proposed project from the ecological, strength-based, and developmental perspectives -Integrates course materials and discussions, citing at least four relevant course readings, articles, book chapters, or credible websites Presentation (10 marks) -Structure of paper and presentation of material is clear, logical and congruent. -Introduction provides a succinct overview of the intention and structure of the paper. -Conclusion clearly summarizes the main points/findings. -Spelling, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, pagination, punctuation and clarity of writing are at a 1st year University level. -References in text and in bibliography are complete and according to APA standards