CLL Donor Impact Report FY23

Community Learning Lab

JULY 2022 - JUNE 2023

small grants BIG IMPACT

Since August 2022, the Community Learning Lab has awarded $4,955 to the School of Social Work faculty, staff, and students to support service projects that benefit community partners. These funds allowed projects to get off the ground that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

Clinical Assistant Professor Kim Rice facilitated a collaboration between senior BSW students and Rantoul Township High School to organize student educational workshops. Workshop topics included body image, healthy conflict resolution, LGBTQ+ topics, depression, pressures of social media, changes in families, and healthy coping skills. SGBI covered transportation costs for students traveling to Rantoul.

Dr. Kevin Tan and graduate social work students brought Hope Center students from Danville to visit the U of I campus. SGBI assisted with transportation costs and supplies for an experiential learning activity.

MSW student Joann Boblick was awarded SGBI funds to create cookbooks using recipes provided by housing clients, which will be used as a refrigerator fundraiser for their housing program.

Dr. Ben Lough's 200-level social work course assisted Champaign-Urbana Public Health District with creating a resource guide for adolescents and creating a website to advertise the information. SGBI funded the first year of this website. CUPHD plans to pay for future years.

Dr. Sharva Hampton-Campbell was awarded Small Grants, Big Impacts funding to support the Village Project & the Host Family Program’s efforts to train and onboard volunteers to support the emotional and academic success of former foster youth in college. SGBI funds will be used toward background screenings for future volunteers.

Ph.D. candidate Dora Watkins was awarded Small Grants, Big Impacts funding to obtain supplies and fees associated with the Tour de Healing - a therapeutically applied art-based community engagement effort to support people of color.

To determine the most beneficial ways to utilize CLL’s donation, the CLL hired a Ph.D. student to design and implement a qualitative evaluation with 13 community partners to gain insight into areas for collaboration or improvement. The main areas identified include:

Increased communication

Support for creating project descriptions

Increased information on university resources

Trainings on the topics of HR, IT, professional development, accountancy, and grant-writing

This information will be helpful for CLL and other entities within the School of Social Work, including non-degree certifications and CEU events.

To show support for the local LGBTQ+ community and increase the visibility of the CLL, Becky Ponder designed water bottle labels and stickers that we donated to the Uniting Pride Center's CU Urbana Pride Fest.

In response to an expressed need for grant-writing information and to express our gratitude for the many partnerships we have with community organizations, the School of Social Work’s Community Learning Lab hosted an all-day Thank You Event on the topic of grant writing with Dr. Melissa Iverson as the keynote speaker.

Thanks to your donation, this event was free for community partners and offered up to 5.0 CEUs for LCSW/LSW and LCPC/LPS professionals. The feedback for this event was very positive, with 100% of respondents classifying Dr. Iverson’s presentation as “Excellent” or “Very Good”. Additionally, 93% of respondents indicated value in the CLL offering this event annually. Attendees described the day as “amazing,” “well-organized,” “clear”, and “informative.”