Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio

3458 Reading Road
Cincinnati, OH 45229

Youth Council Urban Champions

The Urban Champions program is a leadership track for youth 16 to 21 years of age to look at options for their career pathway. Youth learn to identify and articulate personal strengths, skills, and competencies; perform research to assess resources to best match skills needed; learn employability and life skills; and produce employment documents, including a resume and cover letter. The Urban League works with employers to provide internship and career readiness training for youth throughout Hamilton County.

Urban Champions programming runs during an academic year (9/1/22-8/31/23.) During this time:
o 23 youth served as leaders in the Youth Council program.
o 40 youth participated in career readiness and internship programming. Hamilton County ARPA funds supported 19 of these youth.

We provided mental health and wellness sessions for all 63 youth with Bolds Visions Consulting. In training, youth were informed about ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience), mental health, mental illness, cognitive behavior model, and defense mechanisms. The mental health and wellness sessions allowed youth to share their experience with mental health and discuss the triggers and trauma in their community that have impacted them most in their youth development.

Youth Summit: We held the annual Youth Summit at Xavier University on July 20, 2023, with over 200 participants from throughout the region. The Youth Summit allows our youth a platform to express their concerns. More specifically, youth could share their experiences through interactive games and activities such as Kahoot and Mentimeter to discuss how youth violence can be prevented. The youth advocates led and facilitated the games, activities, and conversations with guests, allowing the younger youth to experience their peers in leadership roles. These games highlighted the summit because they allowed youth to get involved, share their stories, and learn about the other youth's experiences in different Cincinnati communities. This year’s theme was “Step Up To The Mic” which highlighted the importance of all citizens to step up and use their voice to advocate for the changes that need to happen throughout the community.

They invited Magistrate Latoya Maley of Hamilton County Juvenile Courts and Ohio State Representative Dani Isaacsohn to share their experiences in the legislature and their initiatives for community and youth violence. Youth led several sessions, including a discussion of black masculinity, the negative bias impacting the culture, a youth-led panel discussing post-secondary career planning, and a mental health and wellness workshop.

From October to December 2024, Carmen Gaines, program coordinator, left her position. While the department was determining the hiring process, Dorian Price, working as a Life & Career Coach in our Workforce Program, assumed the role of Interim Program Manager (Oct 2023.) He officially began in the role in January 2024. Dorian has over ten years of experience assisting individuals in achieving mental health stability, accessing career opportunities, and attaining long-term success. Specializing in workforce development and career readiness, Dorian brings a proven track record of expertise in behavior modification, crisis management, career exploration, and job readiness/life skills training.

Key activities include:

? Our program team collaborated with Woodward High School staff to develop a workforce pilot program to be held onsite. Funding limitations prevented full implementation of the program at this time.

? We hired five individuals for employment internships. Four of our participants work at the Saturday Morning Vibes Cereal Bar, and the fifth is working at Making A Change Cincy (https://makingachangecincy.com. Our partnership with the Cereal Bar is of particular relevance. Cereal Bar is a Black-Female-Owned business that began in 2020 as a concept with pop-up events. In 2023, it opened a physical space in the Avondale Town Center, just .2 miles from the Urban League’s main offices and located adjacent to the Holloman Center for Social Justice (another Urban League program), which also opened in 2023. Avondale is Cincinnati’s largest African American neighborhood. As the area’s oldest civil rights organization, ULGSO works closely with partner agencies to build infrastructure, support business development, and create a stable and thriving community.

? Youth Podcast: In 2022, Urban Champions received funding to begin a youth-led podcast for youth expression, advocacy, leadership, and collaboration. Participants also learn how to produce a podcast and gain media production skills, opening their eyes to possible career opportunities in this field. Youth podcasters will have the opportunity to see the many roles involved in making a podcast, from initial conception to consistent releases. We purchased the equipment and hired a consultant to train our team. This quarter, our team engaged in pre-production efforts:
o Distributed a survey to 66 youth at Dater High School to identify concerns regarding athletics and mental health wellness.
o Analyzed survey responses to develop questions for podcast broadcast.
o 29 students attended the live broadcast/recording/taping on 1/11/24 (which will be shared in next quarter’s report along with the schedule for future sessions.)

? Our program team is working with Dater High School's coaching staff to explore site-based program opportunities for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Urban Champions' school-based programming was suspended during the pandemic as the organization shifted to online and virtual services. We have resumed in-person services but have limited resources to return to site-based programming at area schools or place-based initiatives at other youth-serving organizations. Our program, development, and grant teams are actively seeking funding to meet the community's needs and demand for our services. Dater grant funding has been a critical revenue source covering essential programming costs that more restrictive funders (City of Cincinnati, for example) will not.

Website: http://www.ulgso.org
Amount: $25,000
Date: July 2023