Mission

The Youth & Community Engagement (YCE) team is housed within the Muskie School's Cutler Institute at the University of Southern Maine. Since the late 1990s, YCE staff have been working with individuals and communities to leverage their leadership and build their skills, resources, and capacity. Our nationally recognized initiatives provide opportunities for those who don't typically have a voice in decision-making to be heard, to be valued, and to have their input incorporated. Our approach enables all stakeholders to have a greater understanding of community problems and to apply more effective responses to those problems.

What We Do

- Prioritize the growth, development, and well-being of individuals who are engaged in change initiatives.

-Facilitate group process to engage individuals and groups fully and to enable strong relationships, clear communication, and shared decision making.

-Build strong connections, communication, and supports between individuals, communities, and systems.

-Assure that groups identify what data is most useful for understanding the challenge they are facing and that they are able to track the difference that their efforts are making.

-Share lessons learned with community groups, the broader public, funders, and systems to educate, inform and build greater will for responding to community needs.