Category Archive
Each summer, Urban Initiatives spends time evaluating our work from the previous school year, developing plans for the new school year, and setting goals for our team and our organization. This year, we turned up the volume on our planning processes even higher to accommodate all the remote learning changes! One of the areas that…
Although we initially thought that COVID-19 might be resolved in time for Summer Programs, it quickly became clear that the major shifts in programming would extend through the summer and beyond. Our wide range of summer programs adjusted to meet students’ needs as effectively and creatively as possible!
The violent killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other Black people are mourned deeply by our youth, staff, and stakeholders. Institutional racism continues to plague our world and it deeply impacts the communities we serve. As an organization we continue to commit ourselves to equity and anti-racist efforts through…
Goal-setting is a big deal at Urban Initiatives. From our internal operations to the curriculum we use with our participants, goal-setting is a skill that receives a lot of attention and we feel like we’ve gotten a pretty good sense of some of the best practices for setting goals to ensure success. We hope that…
In 2020, Urban Initiatives will be launching a new board to stand alongside our other existing boards. This newly created Advisory Board is a unique place where key partners of UI are charged with advising, advocating for, and being ambassadors of our work. This dynamic group of influencers come from a wide range of backgrounds…
Fun is pretty universal, and the unifying power of having fun together is the foundation for our belief in the unifying power of sport and play. However, fun, sport, and play are all concepts that many see as belonging on a playground or in the realm of children, not in the workplace. For 16 years,…
Urban Initiatives’ programs focus on supporting youth in underserved communities. We reach entire school communities daily, through our Culture and Climate programs that strive to help schools value play and enrichment activities alongside classroom instruction. Through our Continuum of Programming, we reach students over many years and engage them in sports-based youth development programs from…
Urban Initiatives is excited to announce that our 2017-2018 data and evaluation results are complete and our programs have once again showed strong results in physical activity, academic success, and social emotional learning. Urban Initiatives is committed to being a proven organization that continually evaluates our programs to determine success and to make curriculum and…
Workforce development is critical to the success of our organization, our city, and our employees. Here’s how we are prioritizing the development of our staff.
During the 2017–2018 school year, Urban Initiatives made a commitment to prioritize our efforts to foster unity, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We believe these values are critical to our mission. Developing a plan and actions to be proactively an anti-oppressive and anti-racist institution is foundational in our work.
