Addressing Social issues through Cross-sector Partnership: Co-Designing a Youth Leadership Initiative with the Chelsea Children’s Cabinet

Abstract

Youth well-being is at risk in our country. Our work investigates how cross-sector partners, across different agencies and community organizations, conceptualize and act to enhance youth wellbeing through a Children’s Cabinet in Chelsea. With generous support from Boston College, including SIGECS funding from the Schiller Institute, our research team has worked closely with community partners to facilitate the Children’s Cabinet since its inception in March of 2021. Our team serves as core members of the Cabinet’s leadership team to plan and document the process of building cross-sector infrastructure to support youth in Chelsea. Thus far, we have helped the Cabinet facilitate opportunities to hear from youth on key factors in their well being and incorporate youth leadership in community problem solving. The next phase of work will engage youth directly in the cabinet by establishing a Youth Leadership Institute. In collaboration with our community partners, we will explore these questions: 1. What leadership and inquiry experiences can we co-design with youth to involve them in addressing youth wellbeing and addressing social issues in Chelsea? 2. How does our participatory design process meaningfully engage youth in the Children’s Cabinet’s cross-sector efforts to increase youth wellbeing in Chelsea?

Presentations

• Lowenhaupt, R., *Alford, B., Hegseth, W., *Huo, P., Oliveira, G., & Lai, B.S. (2024, January). Responding to Crisis through Cross-sector Collaboration: Institutional Logics and School Improvement in the Chelsea Children’s Cabinet. International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement. Dublin, Ireland.

Publications 

• Hegseth, W., Lowenhaupt, R., Oliveira, G., Bruhn, S., & Lai, B.S. (In press). Toward a leadership framework for educational leadership for well-being. Journal of Ethical Educational Leadership.
• Lowenhaupt, R., Oliveira, G., *de Lima, M., & Lai, B.S. (2024). Community leaders’ sensemaking of environmental jolts: Stabilizing and silver lining framing of disruption. Journal of Community Practice, 1 - 21. 
• Lai, B.S., Oliveira, G., Lowenhaupt, R., *Montes, M., & *Riobueno-Naylor, A. (Accepted). The important role of schools following disaster events. National Academies of Medicine Perspectives.
• Lowenhaupt, R., Hegseth, W., Oliveira, G., Lai, B. (Under review). Co-Designing a Children’s Cabinet: A School District-University Partnership for Youth Well-being Post-pandemic. Journal of Educational Administration.
  

Additional Grants

• 2023 – 2024 Reducing Inequality through a Cross-Sector Care Network for Immigrant-Origin Youth: A Mixed-Methods Case Study of the Chelsea Children’s Cabinet, W.T. Grant Foundation
  • Role: PI, Rebecca Lowenhaupt, Co-PIs Betty Lai & Gabrielle Oliveira
  • Amount: $50,000

Students Trained 

• 3 Undergraduate Students
• 2 Graduate Students
  • Babatunde Alford
  • Samantha Aube, Mental Health Counseling
• 6 Postdoctorals 
  • Whitney Hegseth, Ph.D., visiting Fellow in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development
    
  • Sarah Bruhn, Ph.D., visiting Fellow in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development
  • Babatunde Alford, PhD student in the the Lynch School of Education and Human Development
  • Mariana Lima Becker, PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction
  • Julian Hayes, PhD student in education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  • Nishat Akhi.

Additional Accomplishments 

• In May, Dr. Lowenhaupt received a community award from Chelsea recognizing her efforts to support youth wellbeing.
• Team facilitates meetings supporting youth wellbeing with the Children’s Cabinet.