About Us
Community Change, Inc. (CCI) is a New York State-based company whose mission is to support the survival and success of youth, families, communities, and the agencies that serve them. CCI does this through six services:
- Youth Programs
- Parent & Family Engagement
- Professional Development
- Course & Curriculum Development
- Organizational Development & Strategic Planning
- Fund Development & Grant Writing
We support youth and families with educational programs in the following content areas:
- 21st Century Skills and Social-Emotional Learning Skills
- Career Awareness/Career Explorations/Career Development/Job Readiness
- Civic Engagement/Community Service/Service Learning
- Culinary Arts
- Cultural Awareness/Diversity, Belonging, Equity & Inclusion
- Financial Literacy
- Relationship Education/Restorative Practices/Conflict Management
CCI supports nonprofits, institutions of higher education, school districts, youth bureaus and other agencies through customized curricula and professional development. We also support these agencies by providing fund development and strategic planning services that builds their capacity to serve youth, parents/families, and communities.
Community Change, Inc. has three subsidiary companies: CareerVisions, Ltd., CareerVisions, NY and Professor A.I.
- CareerVisions, Ltd. implements CCI’s short-term, and year-to-year projects.
- CareerVisions, NY, is CCI’s nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization that implements CCI’s state-wide, multi-year, grant-funded projects.
- Professor A.I. is CCI’s EdTech company that provides artificial intelligence-powered resources for teaching and learning. Professor A.I. also provides technological design services and solutions to address the organizational development needs of youth and community-serving agencies.
Our Philosophy
Community Change, Inc. recognizes that students, parents, staff, teachers and community members are all partners who have important roles in achieving our vision. We believe that education is a most valuable tool for gaining the power necessary to create our desired futures. We believe that education must prepare people to control and overcome the challenges of their environment. Community Change, Inc. believes that observation and application are essential elements of an excellent education. Through creative repetition, our efforts focus on advancing participants’ knowledge, skills, values and behaviors in community organizing and career explorations.
We believe that people learn best when topics are presented to them in a relevant and appropriate manner. We also believe that teaching is most effective when an approach seeking to achieve one’s mastery over the content is used. We believe that a foundation of love and a dedication to learning are necessary ingredients towards achieving our vision.
Community Change, Inc. envisions a population of people who can and will support the survival and success of themselves and their community. We believe that, through the work of the CareerVisions Institute and our students, staff, partners and parents, nothing will ever stop us from making this vision a reality.
The Framework for CCI’s Services: Inquiry, Research & Engagement (Asking, Answering & Involving)
A framework is the essential structure, elements or components of something. Inquiry, research and engagement comprise the framework of CCI’s services. Inquiry refers to the act or instance of asking questions; research refers to the practice of finding answers to questions or interventions to problems using references; and engagement refers to the act of involving or participating in something (activities or exercises). These three core elements or components are the basis of CCI’s services that are intentional about promoting critical thinking and strategic planning. CCI’s services are intended to be interventions in community, criminal justice, academic, family, foster care, and organizational settings. CCI’s capacity building services supports artists, community workers, organizational staff, parents, social workers, teachers, and youth workers in various settings to empower the people with whom they work and for whom they are responsible.
What’s the Problem?
If something isn’t done about the lack of leadership and ambition amongst young people, they will continue to be ill-equipped for survival in their community and unprepared to successfully compete professionally as adults.
Instructional Approach
Appropriateness — the content of lessons is delivered to program participants in an appropriate manner. Content of lessons is delivered in such a way that can be easily grasped by the learners because it clear and understandable to every student in the group.
Relevance — the content of lessons accommodates the needs, interests, and concerns of program participants. The degree in which something is relevant determines the level of attention and action it receives from an individual or group.
Observation (Analysis) — lessons allow for learners to observe and analyze the content. This analysis involves the activation of one or any combination of the learners’ senses (i.e. sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing).
Application (Action) — lessons allow for learners to use the content through practical activities/experiences.
Creative Repetition (Reinforcement) — important content of lessons are repeated through a variety of learning activities and experiences.
Mastery — lessons allow for learners to demonstrate that they have mastered the content. Learners are provided with opportunities to teach their peers what they have learned.
Guiding Principles
Learning — increasing one’s knowledge, skills, values and behaviors.
Community — a neighborhood; a group of people having common interests; togetherness.
Power — the capacity to create a desired outcome; strength.
Leadership — the ability to provide guidance and direction towards reaching certain goals.
Excellence — superiority; the state of being of the highest quality.
Vision — the picture of the reality or world that you are seeking to create.
Focus — to concentrate; to center one’s attention on something. Target or goal (noun).
Organization — the practice of having a formalized structure to get things done.
Love — possessing deep devotion and care for someone or something.
Creativity — possessing resourcefulness, inventiveness, or imagination.
Dedication — commitment, loyalty, or devotion to an act, idea, person, or group.
Professionalism — the practice of meeting or exceeding the standards of a particular industry.
Critical Thinking — the process of questioning common assumptions, beliefs, standards, or ideas.
Vision, Mission, Goals and Objectives
Vision Statement
Community Change envisions people and organizations that have what it takes and does what it takes to support the survival and success of their community. We envision young people in positions of power and masters of the industries in their areas of interest.
Mission Statement
Community Change’s mission is to make our community a better place to live. We do this by supporting the development of youth, families, and institutions that serve them. Specifically, we provide innovative and effective educational programs, professional development, organizational development and fund development services.
Goals
- To engage youth in exploring career possibilities based on their interests;
- To guide youth in analyzing and addressing their community concerns;
- To engage youth in exploring their culture;
- To engage youth in exploring ways of building strong relationships at various levels of society; and…
- To build the capacity of organizations to support the communities they serve.
Objectives, Including Dosage of Services
1. To provide at least 28 youth workshops per semester to up to 30 K-12th grade students based on the CareerVisions, Community Change, Legacy and/or Peace Models for youth engagement;
2. To support schools, school districts, government agencies, not-for-profits, and institutions of higher education the development of academic curricula and college courses comprised of at least 24 sessions per semester based on the CareerVisions, Community Change, Legacy and/or Peace Models for youth engagement;
3. To provide at least 12 mentoring sessions (research support, collaborative lesson planning meetings, and/or instructional coaching) per semester to each education professional assigned that support them in developing a series of project-based learning lessons based on the CareerVisions, Community Change, Legacy and/or Peace Models for youth engagement;
4. To provide at least 25 hours of a range of capacity building services (including fund development and strategic planning) per year to government agencies, not-for-profits, and institutions of higher education that will strengthen their services to youth, families and communities.
Services/Strategies
1. Educational Programs (Youth, Family and Community Development): Community Change partners with schools, school districts, government agencies, not-for-profits, and institutions of higher education to develop and implement educational programs, workshops, classes and college courses for the students and families they serve. These programs are based on Community Change’s unique models for 1. career explorations (The CareerVisions Model); 2. community organizing (The Community Change Model); 3. cultural awareness (The Legacy Model); and 4. relationship building (The Peace Model). The themes and exercises for each model are designed around students’ interests and academic needs. This allows for the integration of art, dance, drama games, and sports with such academic content as literacy, science, and math to provide a relevant and engaging educational experience for students. Students are also engaged in research and restorative practice circles to support and facilitate their exploration in each model.
• The CareerVisions Model engages students from kindergarten through college in a variety of fun yet challenging activities that support them in defining and pursuing their career ambitions as they analyze and address their community concerns. Students are engaged in an exploration of people, places and other things related to their field of interest.
• The Community Change Model is an award winning approach to engage students from kindergarten through college in identifying, analyzing and addressing social issues in their neighborhood through the dynamic integration of critical questions, interesting activities and references. In practice, Community Change is applied to a single issue identified and selected by the students. Past Community Change Projects have focused on such issues as drugs, gangs, and violence.
• The Legacy Model engages students from kindergarten through college in an exploration of their culture as it is manifested in their field of interest. Legacy gives youth an idea of the kind of people they can be for themselves and their community. The goal of Legacy is to increase student awareness of their culture in their field of interest. Through fun, age-appropriate and challenging activities, students become aware of the presence and impact of their people in a variety of subjects and fields.
• The Peace Model engages students from kindergarten through college in exercises that repair harm and develop relationships. Research shows schools implementing restorative practices have seen a drop in disciplinary problems, decreased reliance on detention and suspension, and an improvement in student attitudes. Educators worldwide are using restorative practices to prevent bullying and violence. In Peace, this is done by navigating six phases of exploration: self,family, class & school, community, nation and world.
2. Parent and Family Engagement: CCI provides a wide variety of workshops to enhance and strengthen the skills of parents, guardians and other adult caregivers to help them guide their children through schools and their community. CCI parent workshops improve their knowledge and skills related to education, economics, community resources, adolescent sexual health and risky behaviors. Workshops can be conducted at the school or community location of the client. with parents alone and/or with their children to improve communication skills. Workshops are facilitated by a variety professionals, including educators of representatives of social service providers with significant expertise in the training topics.
3. Staff Trainings (Professional Development): Through its unique mentoring approach to staff trainings, Community Change supports organizations in adopting its program models for cultural awareness, career explorations, community organizing, and relationship building. Community Change does this by assigning an experienced educator to provide one-to-one research support, collaborative lesson planning and instructional coaching to an organization’s staff who will be responsible for lesson implementation. Community Change also trains large groups of staff using the common workshop approach and webinars that cover a range of pedagogical and organizational topics, including college and career readiness and parent engagement.
4. Curricula and Course Development: Community Change, Inc. supports schools, school districts, government agencies, not-for-profits, and institutions of higher education the development of academic curricula and college courses based on the CareerVisions, Community Change, Legacy and/or Peace Models for student engagement.
5. Strategic Planning (Organizational Development): Community Change engages its clients in strategic planning process to develop best approaches for overcoming challenges. Strategic planning services include communications, facilitation and/or participation in organizational retreats and meetings. Community Change leverages the experience of its management experts to examine an agency’s needs, challenges, environment, and current capacity to implement common, best and innovative practices to meet their goals.
6. Grant Proposal Writing (Fund Development): Through its grant proposal writing services, Community Change identifies and pursues grant opportunities for its clients. Since 2009, Community Change has raised more than $30 million in government funding for various city agencies, not-for-profits, and institutions of higher education throughout New York State. These include the New York City Department of Education, the City of Yonkers Public School System and the City of Mt. Vernon – Youth Bureau.
Description of The Community Change Pedagogy
The Community Change Pedagogy is our educational approach that cultivates autodidactic (self-directed and self-motivated) learners by blending academics, personal interests, and real-world content with classroom, school and community learning experiences.
The framework of this approach features three key elements: questions for inquiry; references for research and information; and exercises for creative explorations and expressions. This framework helps to deliver an engaging and effective learning experience. The recommended minimum frequency for implementing this pedagogy is twice weekly over 14 weeks, which is roughly one semester.
Each lesson begins with a welcome and icebreaker to introduce the focus question. The lesson then progresses with exploratory and expression exercises that engage students with various references and encourage them to creatively apply what they have learned. In the exploratory exercise, students use articles, videos, and guest speakers to explore and analyze information related to the focus question. Following this, the expression exercise allows students to creatively share their findings from the references through activities they enjoy. Each lesson concludes with a review and reflection segment, allowing students to summarize their learning experience and to share their feedback.
The Community Change Pedagogy includes nine project-based units or models that organize students’ exploration around specific themes:
- CareerVisions for career exploration.
- Community Change for civic engagement.
- Foodpreneurs for culinary arts.
- Legacy for cultural education, DBEI and CRE.
- The Black Experience for Black Studies, DBEI, and CRE.
- The Latino Experience for Latino Studies, DBEI, and CRE.
- Mastery for 21st-century skills.
- Money Move$ for financial literacy.
- Peace for conflict management, relationship education, and restorative practices.
Each unit promotes personal growth, career explorations, cultural awareness and social responsibility.
Each unit includes one special event and one action project. Special events are presentations or performances where students creatively showcase the things that they learned to an audience of their peers, family, and community members. During special events, community members are the audience, observing and appreciating the students’ work. In contrast, action projects allow students to address real-world challenges by getting community members directly involved in planning and implementing an intervention to a local issue. This collaborative approach ensures that community members are active participants, working with students to develop and execute an action plan that combats neighborhood concerns.
The Community Change Pedagogy makes education engaging and relevant. It encourages students to take ownership of their learning while developing critical thinking, research, and executive function skills. The consistent and continuous application of the Community Change Pedagogy with fidelity allows for the cultivation of self-directed, autodidactic learners.
The Models
- K-12 Lessons
- Parent Workshops
- Community Action Projects
- Special Events
- Professional Development
Below are sample age-appropriate lessons/workshops from each of our educational programs that demonstrate the amazing power and creativity of Teacher PAI. Based on the Community Change Pedagogy, each one-hour lesson can cover up to two content areas and include two to three types of activities.
- Elementary School
Civic Engagement
- Elementary School
Culinary Arts
- Middle School
Black Studies
- High School
Relationship Education
- High School
Black Studies
- High School
Latino Studies
- Parents/Adults
Career Explorations
- Parents/Adults
Relationship Education
- Parents/Adults
21st Century Skills
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