I don’t remember precisely when in my adult life the idea that deep partnership could defy logic, so that 1+1 added up to 3, or sometimes even 5, but it might have been when I first began working with Communities in Schools-SA when I was the Education Advisor to Mayors Hardberger and Castro.

So many years later I’m fortunate that CAST also counts CIS-SA as one of its closest partners, and we continue to identify ways to not only share resources, but leverage each other’s strengths for the benefit of young people. For the 24-25 school year, we have a CIS-SA presence in all but one of our schools.

CIS-SA, CAST Schools, and Alamo Colleges have been identified as anchor partners for the Future Ready plan quarterbacked by UP Partnership. Each of us has been asked to collaborate with other organizations interested in the healing (CIS-SA), youth voice (CAST) and access (Alamo). We’re honored and excited to dig into that work and we’ve welcomed Eric Falcon, Student Experience Coordinator, to lead that work for CAST.

But we’re also thinking hard about the power of how healing, voice and access might be interlocking gears that, when working in tandem, might add up to even more powerful conditions to allow young people to thrive. Resources are important, but sometimes we fail to fully examine and deploy our existing strengths, and at CAST we are always trying to unlock our potential and recognize the assets around us.

This week, we head into our third internal leadership session, and we’re so excited that CIS-SA has agreed to join our school leadership teams to examine how our organizations can be more for young people when we are making the most of every person and partner.

As we head into that session, two of our amazing summer interns, Kay Cansino and Tim Huff, put together the following teaser for our leaders. Because not only does partnership make us better – it can also be fun! (click here)

Jeanne Russell

Executive Director

CAST Schools