Part of helping people thrive is making sure the neighborhoods where they live are thriving too. For the past 25 years, Urban Neighborhood Initiatives has focused on serving the people and places within a 1.4-square-mile-area of the Springwells neighborhood in Southwest Detroit. 

To evaluate the impact of these projects and document lessons learned along the way,  CEDAM has partnered with Trina Shanks, University of Michigan social work professor, and her team at the Center for Equitable Family and Community Well-Being. The team will gather and analyze data from network member programs to improve understanding of the impact of student participation in these savings accounts.

The new study by the research team—including Brandy Sinco, senior statistician at Michigan Medicine, and Joseph Himle, U-M professor of social work and psychiatry—links tolerating uncertainty to their previous findings about reductions in social anxiety through improv.

“I was always very impressed with the way U-M engaged our program participants. You could sense there was a respect for their time and information. It wasn’t ‘we’re going to swoop in, do our research, and bolt.'”
~ Delphia Simmons

The U-M School of Social Work partnered with Williams on his COVID-19 relief efforts. Early on, the school routed social work students to assist with food and supply, packing and delivery, logistics and administrative support.

The project focuses on Zone 8, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Detroit, which takes its name from its zip code. Zone 8 experiences many of the inequalities that ravaged all of Detroit in the past decades — unemployment, addiction, persistent poverty, lack of affordable housing — in hyper-focused ways.

The project builds on Tawanna Dillahunt and Julie Hui’s partnership with the Friends of Parkside to pilot a “community tech worker” program to assist seniors requiring technology-related support. Tech workers will be embedded at Jefferson East to develop a sustainable, useful model that will help bridge the digital divide for small businesses. 

As a new pastor Charles Williams III made sure to connect Historic King Solomon Baptist Church to its social service roots. He established a food pantry at the church, clothing giveaways, Thanksgiving meals and youth mentoring services. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Michigan in March 2020, Williams was ready to do more.

“There are at least opportunities to meet one another, collaborate with one another, advise larger groups of people who are doing engagement, and who are working in Detroit, and who are thinking about working in Detroit. It doesn’t have to be everybody starting from scratch completely every time. It’s not perfect yet but it’s better than it was, and I think people are communicating.”
~ Trina Shanks, social work professor