The Egan Urban Center

1. The Egan Urban Center Partnerships that foster social action John Zeigler Director of DePaul Egan Urban Center

2. The Egan Way • Influenced by the work of Msgr. John J Egan • The pursuit of social justice

3. Building Partnerships for Social Justice and Social Action Community partners identify, strategize, and organize around significant community issues that impact their lives such as: Affordable housing, school reform, living-wage jobs, land-use and zoning, economic development, health care, and neighborhood safety

4. Community Planning Actively engaging community partners in being better informed about what is happening in their neighborhoods. Helping to create safe spaces to build social capital Equip residents with data and information on policy that can better help them understand their options An example would be the Egan Urban Center’s Olympic report.

5. Community Builders Learning Together

6. What happens when CBOs come together from different communities to learn from each other? • Building social networks across communities • Lessons learned • Sharing resources • Developing new partnerships and coalitions

7. Sankofa understanding the past in order to move forward Self reflection and positionality Identify organizations, stakeholders and the historical and political context of the community Understand the community in relation to larger context (e.g. current policies) Understand communities past relationship with university and community

8. Community Engagement and Partnerships • Asset-based community engagement • Identify internal assets and resources through relationship networks, grassroots efforts, or research • Build social capital by linking assets and resources in a meaningful way through relationship-building

9. Identifying Community Assets

10. Community Engagement

11. Community Engagement and Partnerships • Community-driven and participatory approach • Community as experts, colleagues, and co-investigators • Building upon work in which the community is already engaged • Continuous dialogue and reflection within and between community and university on capacity-building projects, research, and the nature of the partnership

12. Maintaining Momentum What happens when the participation ebbs and the energy dissipates Develop Proactive Strategies for Sustainability Deepen and Broaden the Focus Expand the Geographical Reach Develop New or Non-Traditional Partners Develop a Graceful Exit Strategy

13. Sustainable Partnerships with Schools: The Chicago Public School Initiative Creating mutually beneficial partnerships between schools and their communities Creating sustainable Community Liaison positions within each school Community Liaison-organized community asset-mapping and relationship-building to connect resources

14. Critical Reflective Moments The process of reflection consists of: Stepping back into ones experience by retrieving its most important moments. Reviewing its process with the eyes of its diverse actors. Analyzing carefully those more relevant moments Drawing lessons useful for the future The Critical Moments are “turning points”, they are moments of change, when situations or feelings became better or worse.

15. Conclusion investing in the time that supports “real” relationships, networks, connections and providing resources, information and helping community partners to develop their own knowledge around issues that effects their community this allows for the creation of a powerful structure, mechanisms, foundations that builds support for social action.