Tools and Curricula

As part of the East Palo Alto Mapping Youth Resource Mapping project, the JGC developed an online program mapping tool that allows users to search for programs by time, content, location, or age range. In addition, the JGC facilitated a youth research project that introduced community members to the mapping tool and gathered feedback on how to improve usability of the tool.

This toolkit created in collaboration with the Coalition for Community Schools is designed to help community schools evaluate their efforts so that they learn from their successes, identify current challenges, and plan future efforts. It provides a step-by-step process for planning and conducting an evaluation at your community school site(s). The toolkit is a practical, hands-on guide that makes it possible for you to improve your community school’s effectiveness and to tell your story. Equally important, it offers a menu of data collection tools (i.e. surveys, public databases) for evaluating whether and how your school is achieving results.

This guide for middle school leaders describes four work areas central to developing a whole-school youth development approach based on one school's process. The guide describes preliminary evidence of progress, and includes hyperlinks to tools that can be adapted to support similar efforts in other settings.

The BASICS Toolkit (Building, Assessing, Sustaining and Improving Community Schools) was developed as a resource for school and community organization staff and technical assistance providers working with community schools at all stages of development. This toolkit was created in collaboration with the National Technical Assistance Center for Community Schools at Children’s Aid Society and the California Center for Community School Partnerships at the University of California at Davis.

This directory was compiled in winter of 2008 to support the JGC’s Youth in the Middle Initiative. The organizations in the directory provide resources and services related to the implementation of youth development principles, such as assessment tools, trainings, and practice materials. Although we created this as a resource for local youth development practioners in San Mateo County, with a focus on Redwood City, we hope that it will prove valuable outside this localized scope as well.

The 2nd edition of the Youth Engaged in Leadership and Learning (YELL) curriculum is designed for school, program, and community leaders to support authentic youth participation, promote effective policies and practices to strengthen communities, and support youung people's personal growth.

This toolkit is for any community interested in undertaking the process to assess and improve its financial policies toward children and youth. The toolkit includes a process guide (including examples of "how it looks in action" and "lessons learned / process pointers"), presentations and reports, data collection materials, database, and conceptualizing aids.