Causes: Education, Student Services

Mission: Higher Ground Youth Center is a project of Higher Ground a Resource Center (HGRC), a non-profit 501c3 organization whose mission is to Reach, Transform and Elevate the southwest community of Tucson by supporting individuals and uniting families to build leaders in the community.

Programs: In the year 2013, higher ground moved to wakefield middle school as a partnership with tusd. In addition to that, we were selected by youth on the rise (yotr), a collaborative that leverages collective cross-sector and community-based leadership and investments of pima county to improve pathways to education and employment for opportunity youth ages 16-19 who have dropped out of high school, to become the first re-engagement center in tucson. By coordinating services, leveraging resources, aligning strategies and improving policies, yotr partners break down siloed systems and establish sustainable reforms to improve outcomes for opportunity youth in pima county. Higher ground is now a part of the community in schools alliance which is the driving force for the mayor of tucson's initiative with americorps to increase high school graduation. There are at least 20 primary organizations already involve in this collaboration and higher ground one of its executive leadership. These organizations include americorps, pima county health, several school districts, la frontera, metropolitan education commision, and the mayor's office. The community in school's alliance already engages several businesses to fund community in schools sites with a coordinator such as higher ground. In addition, the university of arizona is using the enterprise project to design their community engagement piece with all their incoming freshman students. Higher ground in itself has over 20 partners that have actual programs and projects within our youth center. Our organization is built on strong community collaboration and is part of a collective impact movement led by united way called cradle to career which engages over 100 key organizations, foundations, businesses, and the government leaders in tucson. Last school year, our outcomes are the following:- 90% of our students improved their grades- 81% of parents stated that their children have displayed skills that reflected grit and resilience ever since attending higher ground. These character traits are the only common indicator for success among students. - 100% of the parents felt that their children increased in confidence- 83% of our students learned and experienced things that taught them to give back to the community- 65% learned to control their emotions better in school and at home- 85% became more physically active- 81% felt happier ever since coming to higher ground---------------------------------------------------------- we have been featured in the us department of education website for our methods and outcomes. - was featured by the az department of education for our methods on youth engagement. - our jujutsu team is #4 in the world kid's no gi division in the sport jiujitsu international federation. Our jujutsu team consists of several students who have never competed before or even joined sports prior to joining higher ground. - higher ground moved to wakefield middle school in order to expand our program and fill a great community need.