The Alliance for Children and Families has named six new New Voices Civic Engagement Fellows for 2014, awarding each $8,000 to help build community leaders and improve the civic engagement capacity of the human service industry.
The fellowship was established in 2011 and awarded by the United Neighborhood Centers of America (UNCA) until this year, when the organization merged with the Alliance. Each recipient must be sponsored by a member of the Alliance, consistent with the practice when it was managed by UNCA.
Applications for the fellowship are rolling; click here for more information or to apply.
This year’s winners:
- Nina Kavsy Dastur, director of policy and advocacy, Union Settlement Association, New York City. Dastur plans to build engagement plans with residents to strengthen and expand early childhood and afterschool programs, add access to adult education, and expand health insurance coverage for staff and East Harlem residents under the Affordable Care Act.
- Kelsey Hubbell, coordinator of community engagement, The Children’s Center of Wayne County. Hubbell will host Child & Family Advocacy Day in Detroit, where children and families can voice their concerns to the newly-elected mayor and city council, Detroit Public School leaders, and local law enforcement regarding the “State of the Child” in Detroit.
- Jennifer Kinzie, mental health counselor, Hillside Children’s Center, Syracuse, N.Y. and Stephany Moore, senior manager, organization development and learning, Hillside Family of Agencies, Rochester, N.Y. Kinzie and Moore will support Hillside and other neighborhood centers to work together to develop their relationship and work processes with the purpose of creating a larger impact in neighborhoods. Their work will be approached in concert with both the Rochester and Syracuse Hillside-Neighborhood Centers fellowship team.
- Katie Todd, director of evaluation and development, East End House, Cambridge, Mass. Todd will work with out-of-school-time students in the East End House Middle School Program to develop and implement a Community Based Participatory Research project aimed at assessing the impact that the program has on its participants and broader community.
- Jennifer Vallone, director–Project Home, University Settlement, New York City. Vallone will expand the organization’s advocacy committee to be an advocacy/community engagement committee with the aim of incorporating the ideals of both within each University Settlement program and supporting each program to develop a practical plan to increase their efforts in both areas.
John Kelly is the editor-in-chief of The Imprint