Community Supports for Young People – Communities That Care Coalition

CSYP Workgroup

Co-Chairs:

Jennifer Webster, BBBS-FC
Ricia Elwell-Socci, CAPV

Staff Contact:

CSYP meets about once a month on Zoom and has an online workspace on Slack, where conversations continue between meetings.

In 2023, we are trying a “case study” format for some meetings, where we focus on a specific program and its needs for one hour.

2023 Meeting Schedule:
Jan 9, 3:30 Case Study – GPL Teen Space
Feb 7, 1:00 Case Study – CAYP Drop-In
Mar 14, 3:30 Directory Template | CTC Action Plan
Apr 10, 3:30 (Case Study)
May 9, 1:00 (Case Study)
+ June-Dec dates coming soon!

For meeting notes from prior years, see CSYP on frcog.org

What we do

The Community Supports for Young People (CSYP) workgroup brings people together – including young people themselves! – for collective engagement around health equity and the overall wellbeing of young people of all ages (0-24) in our community.

This group includes individuals who volunteer or have personal connections to systems that aim to support and care for young people in our area as well as points of contact from local organizations that work with young people, such as Community Action Youth and Workforce Development Programs, BBBS – Franklin County, Center for Human Development (CHD), Franklin County Community Health Center, Franklin County’s YMCA, etc.

Goals & Objectives

In a broad sense, our goal is to make Franklin County and the North Quabbin region a more accessible and supportive place for young people. We focus on strategies that will help our community become anti-racist and trans-friendly and that uplift the voices of community members who are not well-represented in data about our region.

Communities that Care (CTC) and the Franklin County/North Quabbin Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) co-host this workgroup. The CHIP Network has identified increasing “age at first use of addictive substances” as a priority health outcome for our region, and the CHIP objectives in this area for 2021-2023 are drawn from CTC’s 2020 strategic action plan.