Center for Community Engagement and Collaboration

Center for Community Engagement and Collaboration

CCEC advances authentic relationships with key community & university partners to complement the School of Social Welfare's community-engaged scholarship and instruction, build on strengths, meet needs in our profession and society & advance a vision of justice


Continuing Education Trainings

CCEC 2021 Stats

26
Educational Events Offered
1,960
Participants
4,350
CEUs Issued

Partnering With CCEC

CCEC works collaboratively with contributors across systems to pursue collaborative projects & invest in organizational capacity, with the aim of promoting social, economic & environmental justice. CCEC partners with the community to transform practice and policy through evaluation, training & technical assistance.

Professional Educational Divison

We focus on the professional development and education needs of social workers and other human service sector professionals in the community. We provide professional continuing education offerings and explore new, innovative methods of professional education appropriate for the fast-paced, technology-driven, resource sparse social services sector.

Email CCEC: ccec@ku.edu

Learn more about being an affiliate trainer here.

Contact the Center for Community Engagement and Collaboration to inquire about being a facilitator on behalf on the CCEC: ccec@ku.edu.

Learn more about the Social Work Rural Resilience Network (SRRN) here.

Contact Workforce Development Coordinator Christina Boyd for more information: christinab@ku.edu.

What Participants Have to Say About CEU Trainings:

"I was inspired by the presenter's level of knowledge and approach to the topic."
"I plan on sharing some of the info from today's workshop with my colleagues at our team meeting tomorrow!"

Trauma-Stress Continuum & COVID-19 on Jan 13, 2021, with Jody Brook

 

"Dr. Riquino does a superb job of incorporating typical suicide prevention knowledge into an engaging manner."

"Dr. Riquino provided participants with multiple lenses through which to view suicidal thoughts and ideations that were helpful. He answered many participant questions throughout the training and was insightful and helpful."

Assessing Suicidal Thoughts & Behaviors Micro & Macro Considerations on 10-22-2020 with Michael Riquino

Agency Capacity-Building & Community Evaluation Divison

We focus on supporting social service agencies’ needs for capacity-building and collaborative evaluation, as well as on the broader community’s interests in evaluation and strategic partnerships. In addition to direct contracts with government and nonprofit agencies, this work may also include partnerships with local and regional foundations.

CCEC Director Melinda Lewis: mlewis@ku.edu

$125 per hour

Contact Melinda Lewis for more information: mlewis@ku.edu.

Advocacy Capacity-Building for Community Health Worker Consortium

CCEC facilitated four training sessions (two in-person and two virtual) for members of the Community Health Worker Consortium. The topics of the trainings were developed by the Consortium’s steering committee and included storytelling and effective messaging, policy change in pursuit of Medicaid expansion, and grassroots base-building. The trainings engaged an average of 40 participant community health workers from Kansas City and surrounding communities.

Evaluation Capacity-Building for Health Forward’s Policy & Civic Engagement Grantees

CCEC facilitated three workshops for applicants to Health Forward’s first Policy & Civic Engagement funding round, to help them understand evaluation of policy change efforts and how to construct their own evaluation approaches. Following grant awards, Health Forward contracted with grantees to refine their identified outcomes, relevant indicators, and proposed measures, as investments in their evaluation capacity and in the Foundation’s understanding of their impact.

Evaluation of Missouri Children’s Trust’s Capacity-Building Investments

CCEC partnered with KUSSW assistant research professor Dr. Jared Barton to evaluate the capacity-building investments made by the Missouri Children’s Trust to six grantees working to improve early childhood education and childhood outcomes in Missouri. This work includes traditional evaluation approaches as well as an expanded scope of coaching and consulting activities, as requested by the grantees and the Children’s Trust.

Needs Assessment for Kansas Legal Services

With research assistance from a KUSSW MSW student, CCEC is partnering with Kansas Legal Services on their assessment of the legal needs of low-income Kansans in this time of pandemic and recession. CCEC is consulting on the development and deployment of the needs assessment instrument, conducting an extensive literature review, and supporting KLS’ data analysis and conclusions.

Stakeholder Perception Study for the Kauffman Foundation

CCEC is conducting telephone interviews with grantees of the Kauffman Foundation to assess their perceptions of the Foundation’s understanding of grantees’ perspectives and needs and conducting at least one focus group to engage in iterative analysis, which will inform the final report and recommendations to the Foundation.

Phoenix Family: CCEC partnered with this multi-service organization to construct theories of change for three of Phoenix Family’s interventions. Working with staff—including remotely, as the pandemic altered the organization’s operations—CCEC crafted outcomes and indicators to support evaluation of after-school programs, family support efforts, and senior services.

Health Forward Foundation: CCEC supported the Foundation’s first round of Policy & Civic Engagement grants with evaluation capacity-building. Grantees received Foundation-supported technical assistance from CCEC to help them outline interim outcomes and relevant indicators to assess their progress, identify potential measures, and address evaluation challenges of this long-term policy and social change work.

Kansas Legal Services: CCEC and a Center-supported MSW student provided literature reviews for KLS’ legal needs assessment, examining data in the domains of housing, health, income support, domestic violence, and civil rights. CCEC also worked with KLS to refine data collection instruments for the legal needs assessment and provided data analysis and visualization to inform KLS’ consideration of the insights into the legal needs of low-income Kansans.

Empowering Parents, KC: CCEC worked with one of the School’s valued field partner agencies to provide evaluation capacity-building, including the construction of empirically informed theories of change, identification of validated measures, and agency data protocols.

Kids Win Missouri: After having worked with CCEC on the evaluation of the capacity investments funded by the Missouri Children’s Trust Fund, Kids Win MO contracted with the Center to conduct focus groups and in-depth interviews with early childhood stakeholders in the state, to glean insights with which to inform consideration of major reorganizations and workforce capacity investments. CCEC designed the instruments, facilitated the sessions, and analyzed the data from dozens of virtual field contacts during December 2020.

Below are some great social justice resources worth looking at:

CCEC TEAM

melinda lewis

Melinda Lewis


Director, Center for Community Engagement & Collaboration
mlewis@ku.edu
Image if Diane Bigler

Diane Bigler


Professional Education
dbigler_sta@ku.edu
christina boyd

Christina Boyd


Workforce Development Coordinator, Professional Education
c011m335@ku.edu

Partnerships With CCEC

CCEC partners with many other offices at the School of Social Welfare

Native American Community Liaison: Laura Ramirez lramirez@ku.edu

KUSSW Practicum Office: Kelly Jones kellyjones@ku.edu