Community Outreach and Planning Division

Community-University Partnerships to Promote Healthy Development

A central goal of the Capital Area Health and Human Development Institute is to develop the tools needed for long-term engagement with communities in creating the mechanisms by which measurable and sustainable systems change in early childhood care and education can occur for children and families in the Commonwealth.

The Urban Community Partnership Initiative

The Urban Community Partnership Initiative (UCPI) was a new initiative for the College of Health and Human Development at the Pennsylvania State University which was started in 2003 as the College’s urban outreach. The initiative is housed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Harrisburg area was selected for its unique geographic and demographic characteristics, its proximity to University Park, and the wide variety of opportunities for our students to engage with its diverse neighborhoods, numerous state agencies, and local human service/social service agencies.

The initiative offers Community Service Learning internships for students and Community Based Research projects for faculty. Through involvement in the initiative, both students and faculty will have many opportunities to work together on community-based initiatives. The purpose of the intervention(s) is to meet the needs of the local Harrisburg community. True partnerships are being developed with the Harrisburg community in which the community members are equal partners with university faculty and students. The purpose of the initiative is primarily to meet the pressing social, human, and health issues of the local community rather than starting with a research agenda. This initiative is a long-term commitment by the university to remain fully engaged with the Harrisburg community. This will not be a short-term project just to collect data.

UCPI is a collaborative intervention and will coordinate with other initiatives already established in the Harrisburg area, such as the Harrisburg Semester administered by the Penn State Harrisburg/Capital College School of Public Affairs. UCPI efforts will be driven by the needs of the local Harrisburg community and faculty and students from Penn State University will be linked to assist in meeting these needs.

University Children’s Policy Collaborative: The Early Childhood Care and Education Task Force

In 1999, the Institute and the Prevention Research Center joined with nationally recognized researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development and the Temple University Center for Public Policy to form the Universities Child Policy Collaborative (UCPC). UCPC was initiated to provide cross-university capability and cooperation in providing policy-relevant research on issues related to children and families to the State of Pennsylvania. Formed by the three major state-related universities, UCPC has built a matrix of research capabilities and a network of colleagues here and nation-wide to answer the most pressing questions about advancing the well-being of Pennsylvania’s young children.

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