About Us

The Center for Community Engagement links the Graduate School at Lewis & Clark to our lager communities. Through the center, we collaborate with a wide range of professional organizations, educational institutions, community groups and more.

Because of our commitment to community engagement in everything we do, alumni return to us for on-going professional development, organizations seek us out as partners to pursue grant funding for community based projects in education and counseling, school leaders choose us to develop effective professional development for their schools and districts, and our students learn day in and day out alongside practicing professional counselors and educators.

Mission

The Center for Community Engagement seeks to develop programs in collaboration with community partners in order to:

• Enhance the effectiveness of education and mental health professionals as agents of change
• Support the self-organizing capacities of groups, organizations and communities working toward social justice
• Help meet the educational and mental health needs of marginalized communities with a commitment to address issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, power, privilege, language, and ability

We work toward these goals in the following ways:

1. We make targeted and sustained connections in our educational and mental health communities by:
   
   • Building and supporting alliances and networks
   • Creating connections with social service organizations and schools
   • Seeking out, exploring, and reflecting the diversity that exists within communities
2. We take a holistic, integrated and cross-disciplinary approach to addressing critical community needs in education and mental health
3. We connect theory and practice for the benefit of communities
4. We prepare a cadre of new education and mental health change agents by integrating outreach into graduate coursework and involving graduate students in outreach activities
5. We provide high quality documentation of center efforts for the purposes of planning, evaluation, and dissemination

An Invitation to Connect

We invite you to explore the website for the Center for Community Engagement to learn more about our current and past projects.  Have questions or ideas about how we might be able to work with you or your organization?  Contact us.  We’re happy to discuss ideas for new projects.