Whole Child, Whole Day Mini-Grants: 16 Projects Funded!
YDEKC, with generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is excited to provide funding to community-based organizations and schools for projects to be implemented in 2019. Whole Child, Whole Day mini-grants proposals were due March 4th and we received 40 proposals! The WCWD Mini-Grants aim to increase and strengthen cross-sector alignment and collaboration between youth serving organizations, youth, families, and K-12 institutions that support social and emotional learning (SEL) and youth success across the whole day in the Road Map region.
Whole Child, Whole Day Mini-grant proposals were evaluated by a review committee of 16 people, consisting of YDEKC staff, YDEKC members and partners, including members of the Whole Child, Whole Day Advisory committee. Our review committee expressed their appreciation and gratitude for all the inspiring proposals. If you are curious about the mini-grant review process, please feel free to check out the process outline here.
Overall, YDEKC was able to award mini-grants to 10 agencies with a total investment of $95,000. Additionally, YDEKC was able to stretch the budget to partially fund 6 more projects that were recommended by the review committee as promising projects. This was an additional investment of $28,000.
We are excited to announce the WCWD mini-grants projects:
East African Community Services
Project: Muslim Identity Mapping Project
School District: Seattle
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
Pilot will serve 25 hijab-wearing East African Muslim girls and will use photography to reinforce positive self-image by capturing images that express their unique perspectives. The project will draw on the strengths and knowledge of East African Muslim girls and East African volunteers to deliver a transformative program for girls who regularly experience multiple forms of identity violence.
Para Los Niños
Project: Aprendamos Juntos
School District: Highline
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
Mini-grant will strengthen existing programs: Aprendamos Juntos (Learning Together) is an after-school program that improves the academic performance of low income Latino children and supports parents to build English literacy and develop leadership skills to advocate for their children’s education. Descubriendo Nuestra Cultura (Discovering Our Culture) is a Latino heritage and Spanish language learning summer program that fights summer learning loss by supporting the bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural growth of pre-kindergarten to sixth grade children and provides free and reduced fee arts, cultural learning, physical fitness, and academic skill building.
Young Women Empowered (Y-WE) in partnership with Foster High School
Project: Healing-Centered SEL for Teens
School District: Tukwila
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
Y-We will deliver activities addressing key Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) areas and systems. Planned activities that address priorities identified by Foster HS teachers and students, include: community partnership development, two 6-week SEL sessions for youth focusing on Relationship Skills and Self-Management, two training sessions for teachers and school leadership focused on healing-centered engagement and trauma-informed work, and Y-WE’s Youth Leadership Summit, free and open to the community, will feature youth-led and youth-chosen workshops addressing health, culturally relevant healing, arts and community engagement
Sound Discipline
Project: Youth Co-Design
School District: Renton (Dimmit Middle School), Highline (Evergreen High School)
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
The goal of this project is to empower teens in their own learning and to develop a tool to enhance adolescent wellbeing. With support from YDEKC, Sound Discipline will partner with teams comprised of students and teachers to adapt the research-based Positive Discipline curriculum for use in middle and high schools. During the course of phase one of three-year project, 6 students will be hired to co-design, pilot, and begin to assess the social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum that will eventually be published and distributed for use across the nation.
Seattle Parks and Recreation CLC Middle Schools
Project: My Brothers/Sisters Keeper (MBSK) and Herman@s Unid@s (HU)
School District: Seattle
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
Mini-grant will support My Brothers/Sisters Keeper (MBSK) and Herman@s Unid@s (HU) mentoring programs. MBSK and HU provide cultural, social, academic and mentoring opportunities to middle school students of color led by adults that share the students racial and cultural identities. Key elements of the programs include mentoring, community service, group meetings, integrated school support, stipends, and use of strategic data tracking. This project will fund a 3 day/2-night camping trip for students and mentors participating in the MBSK and HU programs. Students will engage in workshops and discussions led by mentors focusing on: College/Career Readiness; Community, Culture, and Heritage; Social Development and Life Skills; and Personal Health and Wellness.
Communities In Schools Federal Way (CISFW)
Project: Students Organized Against Racism
School District: Federal Way
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
CISFW School Outreach Coordinators (SOCs) at all seven middle schools in Federal Way will advise the student-led Scholar Voice Collaborative (SVC), and the SOCs at all four high schools in Federal Way will advise the student-led “Students Organized Against Racism” (SOAR) group. Both groups aim to amplify youth voice to actively create student-driven change within each school. The students in the SVC and SOAR will develop ways of understanding complex relations between self and systems of oppression and work together to challenge and change institutional practices that negatively impact all students—especially students who have been marginalized because of race, poverty, and other societal circumstances. The groups will work with school administration to make recommendations and implement solutions to issues identified as impacting the school climate and creating unwelcoming environments.
Space Between with Leschi Elementary
Project: Mindfulness for Teachers and Students
School District: Seattle
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
The mini-grant will support two integral goals: 1) Bring mindfulness practice to whole school communities in high-needs schools, and 2) contract with paid facilitators who represent the demographics of Leschi. Teachers at Leschi Elementary will use trauma-informed mindfulness practices and mindful classroom management to support student self-regulation. Professional learning for teachers focuses on practicing mindfulness as self-awareness and self-care, helping teachers become aware of implicit biases, thoughts, and emotions, and skillfully respond when students are dysregulated. Space Between facilitators will also work directly in classrooms to demonstrate mindfulness practices with teachers and students. Lastly, they will provide communication and education to families, building skills across the whole school community.
Somali Parents Education Board
Project: SHAPE Demonstration Project
School District: Renton
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
The Strengthening High-Needs Achievers through Public Empowerment Demonstration Project (S.H.A.P.E.) was developed in collaboration with the Somali Family Community, Community Based Organizations, as well as the Somali Parents Education Board. It aims to leverage community leadership building efforts to positively impact academic and social emotional outcomes for Somali students at the Lakeridge Elementary School. This project will execute activities-employing several promising practices-that encompass empirical results strongly correlated with strengthening resiliency factors amongst youth and families. This includes exploring the relational building curriculum Strengthening Families (SF), a research informed family skills training approach, as a tool to build five protective factors.
Mother Africa
Project: Family and Youth Voice
School District: Kent
Mini-Grant Amount: $10,000
Mother Africa will organize various focus groups comprising of African immigrant and refugee youth and their parents. The rationale behind this project is to determine what the African community feels that a program that promotes social and environmental learning, encourages a sense of belonging, and reflects and values the diversity of youth in the community should look like. Focus groups will determine if there are currently any youth programs in the community that address the social and emotional wellbeing of youth in the community; what would encourage parents and youth to participate in such programs; and what sort of out-of-school youth program they might be interested in.
Coalition for Refugees from Burma
Project: Empathy: Reflection through Books
School District: Kent
Mini-Grant Amount: $5,000
Coalition for Refugees from Burma is working towards improving SEL practices, with one of the main goals being to increase empathy. A topic that CRB would like to focus on is encouraging youth to participate in intentional self-reflection. Their project would be to publish a book at each of our 3 sites with the students. Topics for the books would be SEL based and include topics such as “What caring means to me” and “This is why I am proud.” The book writing will encourage self-reflection from the students and give opportunities for them to practice empathy by sharing and listening about each other’s experiences. Brainstorming, writing and illustrating the books would be a 1-month process that will conclude with sending the work to be published into hard cover books, a book for each family, and a family engagement night at each site.
Partial WCWD Mini-Grants were awarded for the following six projects:
Boys and Girls Clubs of King County
Project: Infusing Summer Brain Program with Teen Voice
School District: Highline, Federal Way, Auburn
Mini-Grant Amount: $5,000
Requested funds would support program enhancements that are in direct response to youth feedback about their Summer Brain Gain SEL program. Additionally, youth will have regular opportunities to provide feedback on Summer Brain Gain throughout the 2019 summer program, so Southwest and Federal Way Teen Program staff can continue to make adjustments based on youth feedback throughout the program. Pre- and post-program assessments completed by participants will be compiled and assessed to inform future Summer Brain Gain SEL programming.
El Centro De La Raza
Project: Exploring Identity through Art
School District: Seattle
Mini-Grant Amount: $5,000
El Centro de la Raza (The Center for People of All Races) is seeking support to implement a social justice arts program within the Plaza Roberto Maestas After School program. The purpose of the Plaza Roberto Maestas After School Program is to provide comprehensive and culturally competent support for low-income middle schoolers, primarily Latino and youth of color. Youth will engage with art that focus on identity, culture, social justice, and community, through acrylic painting, photography, collage, and poetry, led by working community artists in these mediums. Sessions will culminate in an exhibition of student artwork at El Centro de la Raza that parents, friends, and the greater community can attend.
Communities in School of Renton
Project: Agents of Change
School District: Renton
Mini-Grant Amount: $4,021
Agents of Change was developed as an opportunity to explicitly make the connection of SEL and racial equity, and the role each of them plays in building positive climate and culture. A group of 35 students at Dimmit Middle school meet twice a week for a full school-year and conduct two projects over the course of the school-year. The purpose of the projects is to harness students’ courage, compassion and collaborative energy to empower them to take positive action to create real and lasting change. The foundation for this program is to foster cooperation, communication, empathy and problem solving skills and involve six core principles.
Somali Community Services of Seattle
Project: Operation Kooxda
School District: Seattle
Mini-Grant Amount: $5,000
The mini-grant will support a variety of Operation Kooxda (team) activities that aim to build SEL skills, improve educational experiences, and promote relationship building among the Somali community and South Shore K-8 School. Activities include monthly discussion groups and quarterly events for Somali youth; parents; and a combination of Somali youth, parents, and school staff.
Arts Corps
Project: Creative School Labs
School District: Seattle
Mini-Grant Amount: $5,000
Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary students and families will benefit from arts integrated learning opportunities in their classroom and school-wide arts activities designed to foster intergenerational understanding and a strengthened sense of belonging in the school community. In addition, 10 teachers will benefit from embedded professional development. Classroom teachers who partner with Arts Corps teaching artists report learning new skills that they can apply in their own teaching practice. These include ideas/inspiration for integrating arts in their curriculum in order to boost SEL, and a greater aptitude for collaboration.
Community for Youth
Project: Community Voices
School District: Seattle
Mini-Grant Amount: $4,500
Community for Youth (CfY) is proposing a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project that we will implement to create a more authentic and sustainable bridge between our program, our mentors, our students, and the broader communities we serve. Their Community Voices project will seek to listen and understand in an effort to build authentic and collaborative relationships with the goal of having these partnerships shape a re-design of our program offerings. CfY will seek input from community leaders, common stakeholders, and peer service providers to best align our efforts around the mission of better supporting our students. Student Leader Corps will help plan, market, and facilitate these community conversations.