1. Community Leadership Development University Partnership Learning through Community University of Maryland Baltimore HUD/COPC New Directions Grant Randa Deacon, MSW Glenn L. Ross, Community Advocate

2. Key Concepts • Community must play a key role in defining • Skills, energies and resources exist within the community • Coordination will increase impact • New alliances will continue after the project itself has ended

3. Realities of the Community • Few associations and organizations in which residents are connected to one another • Breakdown of trust, optimism and supportive community among residents • Economic development that presses on the neighborhood making residents vulnerable to external market pressures • Failure of institutions to involve residents in problem solving

4. Goals of Leadership Development • Enhance neighborhood organizing and leadership skills of residents • Assure that organization has capacity to lead and continue the work • Develop skills that encourage participation, facilitate consensus building, share responsibility, identify new leaders and enable groups to work together to achieve their goals. • Connect people with others inside the neighborhood around issues that they care about and that they think will improve the quality of life there

5. Our work • Organizing citizen involvement • Outreach • Develop coalition • Develop community plans

6. Strategies Used • Workshops • Dialogues • Training • Working with groups –provide needed resources

7. Results • Leaders from CARE and McElderry Park held their own joint community meeting to allow residents to discuss the process and to prepare for participation in the upcoming meetings. • A core group of people (leaders and residents) have become involved with learning a great deal about community planning, advocacy (for preserving affordable housing) and policy (what the city can do to help and hinder) • Many residents have become involved with a larger affordable housing group and as a result have had the opportunity to meet and discuss the issues and challenges with developers and people more active and knowledgeable • Concerns raised at a CARE community meeting resulted in a slow down in the planning process which has given residents more opportunity to talk about their concerns • AECF sent a contingency to Birmingham to meet with neighborhood leaders who were involved in similar plans. This has expanded their view and positioned them as advisors/ambassadors.

8. Evaluation: Challenges Noted • Not everyone wants to be a leader  there are different levels of involvement: • Participation • Group leadership • Community leadership • Recovery and revitalization in a community when connection is broken between the vision, the plan, the citizen organizing and engagement

9. McElderry Park LeadershipTraining Activities

10. Planting the Seed • Neighborhood background • Partnering with AECF, SWCOS, & Banner Neighborhoods • Comfort level, funding & technical assistance • Survey report changed focus for dealing with community concerns

11. McElderry Park Community Concerns

12. Nurturing • Group meetings • Work groups created • Projects – direct & indirect results • Residents groomed for future • leadership

13. Training Topics • Actions speak louder than words • Personality Profiles • Family Skills • Conflict Resolution • Leadership • Communication Feedback

14. Lessons Learned By Community Residents • trainings helped them to identify their strengths • a unique bonding experience By The Leadership • how to delegate • comfort level – leader vs. advocate

15. Results - 1 • Potential leaders were identified • Resident participation in community activities increased • Resident self-motivation increased (I.e. writing proposals, resulting in grant funding) • Residents became involved with other community-based stakeholders. • Communication & feedback within the community increased

16. Results - 2 • McElderry Park residents became more involved in: • community association programs and projects • Developing a Tench Tilghman safety team • community after school programs – Banner Neighborhoods • the Southeast Stakeholders’ Coalition • community newsletter/newspaper • community development projects

17. We Thrive & Prosper!

18. Bringing the “Unity” backinto “Community”