COLEMAN CHILDREN AND YOUTH SERVICES
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Mission Statement
Coleman builds the leadership of low-income youth and parents in San Francisco to build better schools and a city where all children and families can thrive. Coleman members are organizing for quality education, affordable housing, safe communities, a locally funded safety net, and pathways out of poverty into good jobs. Coleman utilizes an innovative strategy that includes budget and policy advocacy, grassroots organizing, leadership development, direct services, and voter education to win concrete community improvements. Among other contributions over the last 40 years, Coleman spearheaded campaigns to win the city’s landmark Children’s Fund, won education reforms to close the SFUSD achievement gap and transform the district’s approach to school discipline, and led efforts to create the first SFUSD Wellness Centers and the Parent Advisory Council. We are working to ensure that those most affected by the problems in our city are at the decision-making tables designing and implementing the solutions.
About This Cause
Founded in 1975, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth is a member-led, multi-racial community organization working to create a city of hope, justice, and opportunity for all children and families in San Francisco. Coleman youth and parent members are organizing for quality education, affordable housing, safe communities, a locally funded safety net, and pathways out of poverty into good jobs. Through an innovative, hybrid strategy that includes grassroots leadership development, youth and parent organizing, budget and policy advocacy, voter engagement and strategic alliance-building, Coleman is transforming public institutions, improving the lives of thousands of San Francisco residents, and providing an inspiring model for community-driven change around the country. Our impact: ➢ We spearheaded the campaign to win the first tax set-aside for children’s services - called the Children’s Fund - which now guarantees more than $50 million in annual funding for children and youth services. ➢ We won multiple precedent-setting education equity reforms, including the College and Career for All Policy ensuring that all students in SFUSD get access to the courses required for college admission and the Safe and Supportive Schools Resolution, which transforms the school district’s approach to school discipline. ➢ We have helped to win every school bond measure and we helped spearhead the “Prop H” Great Schools ballot measure campaign that now brings in $60 million of city funding to the under-funded public schools. ➢ We helped to create multiple vehicles for meaningful parent engagement in SFUSD, including the SF Parent Advisory Council. ➢ We won the resources to start 7 school-based Wellness Centers in SFUSD and creating Youth Vote and the SF Youth Commission. ➢ We created new public systems for quality, affordable childcare. ➢ We won reforms at the SF Juvenile Hall, which led to a significant decrease in the unnecessary incarceration of young people of color. ➢ We helped to found San Francisco Rising, an alliance of nine organizations working to increase the civic engagement and power of working class communities of color. ➢ We helped to reform SFUSD/SFPD protocols to prevent unnecessary student arrests and reduce police presence in schools. ➢ We successfully advocated for a dramatic expansion of the city’s investment in workforce development resources in the Southeast neighborhoods most affected by unemployment. Coleman Programs: Youth Making a Change (YMAC) and Parents Making a Change (PMAC) are the central, driving forces for change in the organization. YMAC and PMAC organize and build the leadership of high school students and parents in the SFUSD. We also have a citywide network of hundreds of community-based providers and thousands of individual advocate-supporters. Every week, Coleman leaders are learning new skills, gathering up the courage to speak out, building unity across race, language and generations, and winning issue campaigns that make a real difference, together Coleman Campaigns: Currently, Coleman members are carrying out policy and budget advocacy campaigns, along with a wide range of community engagement and education activities, to achieve the following: Education and Restorative Justice: Expanded resources and improved strategies to close the achievement and opportunity gaps in SFUSD and to end racially biased and ineffective disciplinary and school push-out policies and practices in SFUSD. Economic Justice: Expansion of city investments in proven strategies to address the most urgent barriers to employment for low-income communities of color in San Francisco; Preservation and expansion of the most critical services and programs for low-income families of color; Community-driven reauthorization of – and improvements to – the Children’s Fund and the Public Education and Enrichment Fund. Leadership Development: Coleman staff members teach weekly high school civic engagement classes and offer a range of skills-building and political education workshops in SFUSD classrooms on a regular basis. We provide more intensive leadership development opportunities for parents and students multiple times a year through our Grassroots Leadership Institutes. We also provide regular academic support and coaching for our youth leaders and formal internship opportunities for YMAC alumni and SMAC leaders. Over the years, the large majority of Coleman staff members have come from our membership base and from the broader communities we serve. Coleman membership: Grassroots leaders are the heart and soul of our organization. Over the years, Coleman has intensively trained thousands of low-income young people and parents of color. Through classroom and after-school youth development and parent engagement programs, multi-generational leadership institutes, and year-round hands-on civic engagement opportunities, Coleman members are acquiring the skills and confidence to be successful in their own lives and effective leaders and change-makers in their schools and communities. Coleman families’ membership meetings are lively spaces, full of debate, lots of food and the sound of laughter. What members have to say about Coleman: Coleman helped me to find my voice and showed me how I can organize to make change. I learned that I have an important perspective to offer as a young person who has seen and been through a lot. - Rosie, Coleman youth leader It is an amazing feeling to know that whatever dream I have for my children – and whatever change I want to make – I will never have to fight alone again. - Evelyn, Coleman parent leader