Partner
YMCA of San Diego County
The YMCA of San Diego County (Y) is the largest YMCA association in the nation, serving nearly 400,000 San Diego County residents and employing more than 4,500 people. Through a variety of programs and services focused on youth development, healthy living and social responsibility, the Y unites men, women and children — regardless of age, income or background — to nurture the potential of children and teens, improve the nation’s health and well-being, and provide opportunities to give back and support neighbors.
Goals
In 2020, YMCA San Diego was introduced to the HOPE framework as the next step in their work with trauma-informed care. At the time, the team was using a few different trauma-informed frameworks to train staff and engage with their community, but the team felt they needed more practical tools for guiding action and implementation. After coming across the HOPE team at the Early Childhood Mental Health: We Can’t Wait conference, the YMCA team was inspired to explore it further.
YMCA San Diego’s goals for implementing the HOPE framework included:
- Improve family/provider relationships
- Increase staff retention and satisfaction
- Embed HOPE into organizational culture including strategic plans and KPIs
- Create meaningful ways for community members to be engaged in child-serving organizations to create more culturally relevant care
Implementation
Over the past few years, YMCA San Diego has embraced and implemented the HOPE Framework internally in staff development, practices and core values, externally by building alignment, engagement, and training capacity with cross sector partners. The team approaches these elements as operating synergistically for effective and authentic HOPE implementation.
Internal Staff Development
In 2022, the YMCA Childcare Resource Service (CRS) team launched Foundational Trainings, an ongoing series that introduce staff to evidence informed service delivery standards for community engagement. In addition to Strengthening Families’ Protective Factors, Trauma-Informed Care, and Understanding Racism as Historical and Intergenerational Trauma, HOPE is provided to all new staff and acts as a central component to align best practices and provide guidance on implementation.
HOPE trainings have since been expanded and offered to other teams in the YMCA of San Diego County. They have provided 24 internal HOPE trainings since 2022 to CRS staff and other YMCA teams outside CRS. CRS Leadership learning and development has also included ways HOPE approaches and access to the building blocks can be integrated into staff supervision and support.
Internal Implementation
The CRS team has implemented strategies for integrating HOPE into core values and practices. Along with the HOPE training content, trainees engage in a reflection session to explore what HOPE can look like in their work with families. The internal HOPE team has also provided departmental and team consultation on adoption best practices, such as changes to internal and external materials and processes to be grounded in a HOPE approach. For example, supervisors are encouraged to ask staff about their relationships with parents on their caseload and use their 1:1 supervision space to discuss ways to identify and build on family strengths.
External Partner Engagement
Within YMCA San Diego’s community, CRS serves as a convener of HOPE-invested partners in the region. They founded the San Diego HOPE Network in 2022 and have hosted 3 convenings. Through this the CRS team as secured committed HOPE inspired entities- the San Diego Child and Family Well-Being Department (formerly Child Welfare), San Diego State University with other social service and health care partners paving the way to do the same. San Diego Child & Family Well-Being Department required a HOPE approach in the creation of the new Family Connection Hub, people and places for children, youth and families to connect with needed/ wanted resources and supports.
External HOPE Training and Implementation
The YMCA partnered with the California Training Institute to focus on reflective Communities of Practice and implementation planning. These efforts aimed to support partners in Family Resource Centers, Child Abuse Prevention Councils, and child welfare agencies across California. HOPE trainings later extended to other organizations, including county health workers, staff from the child welfare system, and other local non-profits. They have provided 27 HOPE trainings to local partners through conferences and individual trainings since 2022. They have presented HOPE and Strengthening Families’ Protective Factors at the Early Childhood Mental Health conference and brought together over 40 partners to identify opportunities for deeper alignment in their efforts.
Capacity-building efforts
The YMCA has increased HOPE training capacity with the recent launch of a local Training of Facilitators program, which has resulted in 17 new HOPE trainers in San Diego thus far. The ToF is offered as a cohort model, where new facilitators from a variety of sectors have opportunities to collaborate and envision ways the HOPE framework can be adapted for their organizations and communities.
Lessons learned
Staff felt more positive, satisfied, and prepared to support families
HOPE has helped staff shift the focus with families from identifying deficiencies to recognizing strengths that can be leveraged as a foundation for supporting families in overcoming challenges and improving their quality of life. New staff who have completed HOPE trainings shared that it has helped set the tone for their work and team culture.
Families receive supportive, attentive, and collaborative services
As a result of staff HOPE approaches, parents were met with staff who engaged in relational ways to support access to goal-concordant care, self-advocacy, and positive childhood experiences for their children. Parents felt that staff dedicated time to understanding their’ unique circumstances and the historical context that shaped them and their families. Parents felt that staff made significant efforts to respond to their questions and provide thorough answers. This support was especially helpful during transitional periods, when staff collaborated with them in identifying alternative childcare options or adjusting their work schedules to better accommodate their children’s needs.
HOPE is concrete and adaptable to many communities
The adaptability of the HOPE framework has allowed YMCA San Diego to develop training not only for their staff but also for other community organizations, including county health workers, after-school programs, grant writers, and funders.
Alignment between HOPE and organizational goals and efforts is essential for building buy-in
The YMCA HOPE implementation team emphasized the importance of framing HOPE not as a separate framework or process, but rather as a natural extension of their existing efforts. By highlighting aspects of their work that were already aligned with HOPE, they could focus on areas to strengthen and amplify.
Future plans
Following the foundational HOPE training, YMCA San Diego plans to expand the ways every program provides structured support for their staff in applying HOPE to their roles and relationships with families. While many teams currently draw on HOPE practices, future work is aimed at expanding adoption more broadly across our association/ programs. As the leadership development program continues to grow beyond the CRS program, the team plans to standardize additional HOPE-informed tools, procedures, and approaches into more areas of onboarding and supervision.
Further integrating HOPE into staff’s work and supervision
Following the foundational HOPE training, YMCA San Diego plans to expand the ways every program provides structured support for their staff in applying HOPE to their roles and relationships with families. While many teams currently draw on HOPE practices, future work is aimed at expanding adoption more broadly across our association/ programs. As the leadership development program continues to grow beyond the CRS program, the team plans to standardize additional HOPE-informed tools, procedures, and approaches into more areas of onboarding and supervision.
Promoting HOPE as a shared community approach the common language spoken in the area
YMCA is dedicated to its vision of San Diego as a HOPE-inspired community, ensuring that all children have access to PCEs and that all families have the support they need to nurture and celebrate their strengths. The team strives for a shared service delivery approach to serving children, youth and families, ensuring that engagement in health and social services are grounded in dignity, respect, honoring existing strengths and compassion. Many of their community partners have expressed excitement about integrating and adopting HOPE across their programs and networks, and the YMCA San Diego team will continue to expand partnerships throughout the county.
This case study was developed in partnership with Root Cause.
