City Year
City Year is a program that connects gap year students to organizations that aim to build and foster community and educational connections through the 1-year student success coach program. They recruit and train AmeriCorps members who serve in schools, partner with teachers to support student academic, social and emotional growth.
Vision
City Year AmeriCorps members not only make a difference in the lives of students they serve, but also acquire valuable civic skills that help them and prepare them to lead their communities and their careers to be of service to a cause greater than self.
Core values
City Year also puts a strong multi-level emphasis on linking their coaches to their community and beyond. With an Ubuntu mindset, which promotes the interdependent notion of “You are, therefore I am” and a common humanity, coaches a led not only make a difference in the lives of students they serve, but also acquire valuable civic skills that enable them to contribute to their communities, and eventually lead their communities. City Year functions form the basis that the issues a student has is not only related to academic ability and socio-emotional competence, but also related to community and systemic dynamics.
Program
1 year Student success coach program
Practices
City Year AmeriCorps have both an inner focus and multi-level approach to developing their Student Success Coaches. Their program connects gap year students to organizations that aim to build and foster community and educational connections through the 1-year student success coach program. Coaches are trained and supported in their own social-emotional abilities, using these as primary tools to then coach the students with individualized academic and socio-emotional learning. This allows for the quality of the relationship between the coach and the student to be at the center of their work, reorienting academic performance through a humanistic lens. Coaches are encouraged to embody a self-led experimental approach to problem-solving and an ‘asset-based mindset’ where coaches are positively reinforced in their strengths, facilitating socio-emotional development, and this is then reproduced in their way of working with youth.