The Youth Empowerment Program equips young people with leadership, advocacy, and civic engagement skills to influence processes and drive community change. Through experiential learning, mentorship, and collaborative projects, YEP fosters confidence, critical thinking, and a sense of agency among youth. Participants engage in real-world problem-solving, connect with local leaders, and develop strategies to advance equity and economic mobility in their communities.
Creighton Community Foundation (CCF) operates within low-income, food desert neighborhoods in east-central Phoenix, Arizona, where structural inequities contribute to limited access to nutritious food, under-resourced schools, and constrained pathways for youth advancement. Serving more than 28,000 residents annually, CCF advances a community-based model that integrates positive youth development with neighborhood revitalization strategies to improve life outcomes for high-risk youth and foster long-term community vibrancy. Consistent with community development scholarship that positions schools as neighborhood anchors and catalysts for social capacity-building (Chaskin, 2001; Green & Haines, 2016), CCF collaborates with school districts, local organizations, and residents to align resources, expand capacity, and co-create programs responsive to local priorities.
This study will employ an exploratory descriptive case study design to examine the role of community food access and placemaking strategies in strengthening youth development and neighborhood well-being. Specifically, the study will analyze how a community-supported agriculture (CSA) and edible garden model fosters social cohesion, intergenerational engagement, and shared ownership of community spaces. Descriptive, longitudinal community-level data will be utilized to assess patterns of food access, household stability, and youth participation in leadership and mentoring programs.
Drawing on evidence-based youth empowerment and ecological resilience models (Ginwright, 2010; Lerner et al., 2005), CCF’s programs integrate hunger relief, nutrition education, leadership training, and after-school engagement. By embedding food security initiatives within youth development ecosystems (Alkon & Agyeman, 2011; Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993), CCF demonstrates how school-community partnerships can disrupt intergenerational disadvantage and cultivate community well-being. This presentation highlights partnership design, data findings, and a replicable framework for community-rooted innovation.
Northern Skies Resort, a social-entrepreneurial hospitality enterprise grounded in regenerative and place-based values, is the first international sponsor of the WU Vienna University of Economics and Business Sustainability Challenge, partnering with Algoma University's BRIDGE lab, signaling meaningful bridges between northern, community-embedded enterprises and global sustainability education initiatives. The project aims at designing an authentic, contemporary tourism experience, fostering deeper connections with nature while tackling real-world sustainability challenges in cross-cultural, interdisciplinary teams within the organization, and building a long-term, sustainable business. The presentation explores how nature-based hospitality, technological advancement, and cultural storytelling can foster collective well-being, eco-consciousness, and sustainable lifestyles.
Engage in learning how the Savannah Plan of 1733 developed by James Oglethorpe aligned with CDS Principles of Practice Framework. The presentation will focus on how the good principles of practice have been enhanced as Savannah evolved through growth and change into a modern era while preserving its historical roots.
Sir Patrick Geddes, the “grandfather of modern planning,” believed communities evolve like living organisms—shaped by culture, economy, and environment. While teaching in Scotland, I explored Geddes’ holistic approach, which anticipated today’s practices in placemaking, citizen participation, economic development, sustainability, land use planning, and historic preservation. His emphasis on collaboration, cultural vitality, and hands-on engagement resonates today. Geddes taught us to work with the natural energy of communities, bridging divides and balancing preservation with progress. This session reintroduces Geddes’ timeless ideas and invites discussion on what we can learn from them today.
Local governance is executed in a diverse range of settings, from formal councils to informal settings in the voluntary and private sectors. Determining action in these settings, however, requires discussion and debate before decisions are taken and executed. Using discourse analysis, this paper analyzes citizen-populated committees of council in an Ontario municipality to highlight the conversational strategies used to reach decisions. Up to now, the large body of governance literature has typically focused on how we ought to reach decisions rather than how we actually do reach them. Understanding existing practice points to more effective strategies for collective decision making.
In Western societies, contemplative practice is often considered an individual endeavor; however, throughout human history, contemplative practices—activities and rituals that nurture inner awareness and reflexivity have also been employed in the service of community connection and resilience. Moreover, these practices and rituals have had deep historical roots across diverse cultural traditions and have the potential to inform contemporary approaches to community development, particularly through the arts. For instance, in Hawaiian culture, practices such as hula and oli (chants) serve as contemplative acts that connect participants to ancestral knowledge, communal identity, and environmental awareness, fostering cohesion and shared meaning. Appalachian communities have historically used contemplative folk arts—storytelling, music, and quilting—as means of reflection, resilience, and intergenerational transmission of values, supporting both personal and collective well-being. African American contemplative traditions, including spirituals, gospel music, drumming, and call-and-response rituals, have long functioned as mediums for the collective processing of grief and trauma, fostering social solidarity, and cultivating communal empowerment. In addition to the Christian monastic contemplative practices rooted in medieval Scottish history and in historical Gaelic/Celtic daily blessings and devotional practices, folk rituals such as saining and caim open collective contemplative spaces deeply rooted in place, material culture, and embodied presence.
Envisaged as community development practice, these practices have the potential to nurture collective compassion, calmness, and creativity in the service of community wholeness. This paper provides visceral examples of how communities across cultures employ contemplative practices in response to natural disasters, political and economic challenges, and overall divisiveness within communities. The paper is intended to stimulate healthier deliberation and debate about the use of contemplative practices in community development.
This paper is a declaration for leaders to engage in ongoing and edifying activism in the form of Indigenous advocacy. Due to the unjust generational trauma of Indigenous peoples, this work promotes Indigenous authorship, participation, and empowerment, specifically in negotiated land agreements, commonly known as Impact Benefit Agreements (IBAs). Red Pine Economic Development Corporation (EDC) (pseudonym), a for-profit Indigenous organization owned by Red Pine First Nation, holds two IBAs that lack Indigenous participation, voice, and culture. To address this omission, this paper provides direction to Red Pine EDC to redraft a more fulsome cultural chapter of the IBA, involving Indigenous leadership in the form of an Indigenous-led Advisory Council (IAC). The cultural chapter will be a culmination of Indigenous sovereignty practices, language reclamation, and decolonization methodologies.
This paper focuses on historic preservation connecting the past and future of Indigenous peoples by discussing the discriminatory history of Indigenous peoples in Canada and encouraging reconciliation, which is not a “one-size-fits all” solution to colonial trauma; rather, it is a practice that is unique to each nation (Peters, 2019). This paper directly relates to the theme “Community Currents: Navigating Change Together”, as this work focuses on the needs of Red Pine First Nation members. Community development as highlighted in the conference theme, is achieved when different forces converge. This principle is echoed in this paper as it calls for decolonization practices in resource extraction industries, such as mining corporations, a traditional capitalistic environment in which decolonization has not been prioritized. It amplifies Indigenous voices and promotes the peaceful and activist work among leaders from polarizing backgrounds; First Nations and mining corporations, to achieve reconciliation. Specifically, this work relates to the conference sub-theme “Harnessing Cultural Energy” which highlights the important role cultural traditions such as storytelling play in promoting unconventional partnerships to propel communities forward. This work utilizes storytelling as an evaluation tool which aligns with TribalCrit tenet number 8 which states: “Stories are not separate from theory; they make up theory and are, therefore, real and legitimate sources of data and ways of being” (Brayboy, 2005, p. 430). Ultimately, this paper promotes decolonization and reconciliation practices between First Nation communities and industry partners in a manner that situates Indigenous cultural needs at the forefront.
This qualitative study, as part of a larger mixed-methods study, explored the manifestations of community leadership structures –capacity for change, community growth mindset, civic engagement, and effective local leadership– and the differences in these manifestations between communities with a record of leadership success and their matched counterparts. Findings showed that a community's leadership system is highly complex and multidimensional, extending beyond individual leaders. Differences in the system between the two community types were also evident, especially in the type of community mindset, resilience to negativity, portrayal of a united front, and bringing diverse voices together.
