By Jarvis Berry, President and CEO of Coatesville Youth Initiative (CYI) 

The Coatesville Youth Initiative is a Coatesville-based agency dedicated to the development of healthy youth. Our mission is to contribute to a vibrant future for Coatesville by engaging youth in experiences that support their success in school and in life, and by uniting a wide range of partners to make the community better for everyone.

The CYI Youth Workforce Development and Mental Health Support Program is a project designed to support local youth in the prevention and support of mental health awareness and problems while combining workforce development with the overall aim of supporting healthy youth development.

Our primary goals were to:  

• Equip youth with workforce development skills (including professional & technical skills)  
• Equip youth with Job Readiness skills and tools (resume building and professional reference development)  
• Bring awareness of mental health (as a preventative) to youth  
• Provide direct mental health support to youth

The Coatesville Youth Initiative is appreciative of the collaborative efforts of the Alliance for Health Equity and the participating grantees in the Seed and Scale initiative. At the basic level, the ability to receive matching funds is a benefit that helps agencies such as ours to have the ability to implement effective services to support healthy youth development. But even further, the dollar-for-dollar match that AHE provides through this grant gives us the ability to build partnerships, encourage and motivate other organizations to donate, and maximize our impact. In addition, the bringing together of Seed grantees to not only leverage resources, but also to support one another as peers, has a value beyond dollars. In a time when many non-profits see each other as competitors, the Seed collaboration allows (and reminds us) that we are all in the same boat, going through similar trials and challenges, and by coming together and supporting each other, we can achieve more and have a greater impact than if we sought to do this alone. 

Progress to Date: 

• 49 youth recruited to receive direct, hands-on workforce development  
• New partnerships developed, i.e. with CASD and West Chester University 
• 2 college interns recruited 
• 2 High School interns recruited 
• 400+ youth have been served through the program with 210+ receiving direct mental health support.

Impact on Greater Coatesville: 

Providing youth positive opportunities to better themselves and their community – One of our HS interns and her guardian have expressed what a great opportunity this is for their child, and how it has been a positive influence on the youth to be in such an important role, while being able to support their community. They expressed how great the academic side of HS is, but that it doesn’t necessarily prepare young people for the “real world”, whereas an intern such as this does just that.

Sustainability and Long-Term Vision: 
The Seed and Scale funding has truly helped serve as a “seed” to our upcoming year’s programming. The 2 primary pieces of the Seed project are being built into our current programming and will remain a standardized piece of our summer program. The Seed really helped us identify and put in place (somewhat as a trial) a practice (mental health support) that we would not have been able to put in place in its absence. In addition, the Seed has helped us to identify the necessary costs to fund these additional pieces. Moving forward we now have a concrete programming plan, with specific costs, impact and outcomes. This will aid us as we seek continued support from our funders, for our sustained project.

Call for Fundraising Updates:
The Seed project has provided us with the ability to explain to funders how their support and dollars will go a lot further as their donations are matched. Funders appreciate the “maximizing” of their donations. 

Next steps for 2025?
2025 is the primary implementation time for our project. We had a lot of “gear-up” to get the pieces in place for the project, and although a primary piece of our project has begun in 2024, the crux of our project occurs in 2025. This includes bringing on 40+ youth to receive workforce development skills and direct mental health support. This timeframe also includes the evaluation piece of our project.  

Encouraging Continued Collaboration: 
It is vital that there be continued collaboration between AHE and the grantees at both the current level and greater. As we all seek to achieve health equity for Greater Coatesville our collaboration allows us to increase our reach within the community. This is important because greater reach can be seen as the beginning of “equity”. The greater reach along with our collaboration allows us to provide greater access to resources for all. Finally, our collaboration, which brings together a diverse stream of services, provides one of the most important, yet often overlooked, pieces of heath equity – the ability to truly address social determinants of health – and our collaboration in addressing the broader determinants, helps us create a more equitable environment for all.