Previous Community Partnership Action Awardees

2024 Program Awardee

Utah State University’s Transforming Communities Institute

Utah State University’s Transforming Communities Institute (TCI), housed in the USU Department of Social Work, brings Utahns together to build knowledge and co-create solutions for social issues that matter to their communities. Through a theory of change lens, TCI activities surround community-engaged assessment, planning, intervention, and evaluation to contribute to immediate and long-term sustainable changes in communities and organizations. Examples of community research and solution-building projects with TCI involvement and leadership over the last two years include:

• TCI faculty helped to develop the WAB Warming Center, which is the only organization providing emergency shelter for the general public in a three-county region in northern Utah during the year’s coldest months. TCI performed a community needs assessment on the warming center concept, supports capacity-building efforts, engages in advocacy, and provides evaluation services.

• With community partners, TCI and the Department of Social Work recently co-developed a statewide initiative to increase access to quality legal services by training social workers as Community Justice Advocates (CJAs). Currently, CJAs may provide brief and limited legal advice regarding debt collection to underserved populations in Utah. Eventually, topic areas will expand to domestic violence, housing, and expungement.

• TCI has with community partners across Utah to conduct human service assessments on various topics, including domestic violence, LGBTQ+ youth well-being, and tenant-landlord issues.

TCI and the Department of Social Work also provide free monthly online continuing education opportunities. In 2023, they provided nearly 14,000 continuing education hours to over 600 social workers and other human service professionals in Utah.

2023 Awardees

Jordan Davenport
Tuskegee University

Jordan received her BSW from Tuskegee University. She is originally from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She currently attends the University of Michigan where she is pursuing a MSW with a pathway of Integrated Mental Health and Substance Abuse. She is a member of Phi Alpha Honors Society of Social Work, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and a two-time President of the Tuskegee Social Work Alliance. As the President of the Social Work Alliance, she conducted an organizational assessment to discover the gaps within the association to implement new policy and procedures to include an official manual with standard operating procedures to structure the association for growth. Jordan expanded both the revenue and membership of the alliance to expand its reach. She developed the infrastructure of the organization and conducted a needs assessment of the campus and the surrounding rural area to determine community service needs to set the annual outreach agenda and develop partnerships.
 

Kotomi Yokokura
University of Kentucky