Programs & Services

Each year, Just Communities' CommUnity Leadership Institute prepares 50 Central Coast high school students to understand injustice in the world and translate that understanding into positive action in their schools and communities. The eight day residential program is a unique opportunity where young people from diverse backgrounds explore their multifaceted identities, learn how to recognize and counter bias and gain advocacy skills and tools to bring back to their schools and communities. Activities include discussion groups, role playing, learning exercises and presentations on a variety of human relations and social justice issues. Young people participate in and learn from activities which focus on ethnic and racial identity, stereotyping, communication, family issues, racism, homophobia, sexism, and classism.

JUST COMMUNITIES' Institute for Equity in Education is a 3.5-day residential, intensive training that provides educational leaders with an opportunity to explore personal leadership issues related to race and difference, and to identify constructive strategies for addressing institutional racism, educational inequality, and achievement gaps in schools throughout the Central Coast. JUST COMMUNITIES' Institute for Equity in Education helps participants develop the skills, tools, and resources necessary to create effective learning environments for all students.

Just Communities' Safe Schools Program is a two-day training (plus follow-up support) open to K-12 teachers, counselors, administrators, and to high school students. The program combines experiential activities and dialogue to help participants explore heterosexism and homophobia and the many forms they take in schools, from individual actions to institutional discrimination. Day two allows participants to address homophobia and heterosexism in their schools by developing concrete action plans for creating safe and inclusive school environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, staff, and parents.

Designed for middle school and high schools, Talking in Class is a 3-day in-school program that empowers a diverse group of students with the awareness, knowledge, and skills they need to promote respect and improve human relations in their school community. Students leave the program having developed "Building Inclusive School Community Action Plans" that include attainable and measurable goals and timelines for improving human relations on campus.

Since its inception in 1999, Camp Unity has provided more than 400 Central Coast high school students with diversity training and skills to work through intergroup tensions and effectively communicate with people of different cultures. Throughout the three-day program, youth discuss similarities and differences based on race, gender, ethnicity, and religion, and learn to understand and respect people whose culture differs from their own. Camp Unity helps students to discover that what they have in common with each other far outweighs their differences, and gives them the tools to continue this work in their schools and communities.

Just Communities Presents programs use professional theatrical performances as a starting point for dialogue on challenging human relations topics. At every Just Communities Presents performance, audience members participate in a pre-show activity, watch a 40-minute play acted by a single performer, and then participate in a follow-up conversation facilitated by a human relations specialist. Designed primarily for middle and high school audiences, as well as for people who work with youth, current Just Communities Presents productions deal with an array of human relations issues.

Schools are constantly being bombarded with new demands, programs, and opportunities from the state, the federal government, and from local and national vendors. Through a 5-stage process, Just Communities helps public, private, and parochial schools and districts think and plan strategically in order to maximize the benefits of programs to address issues of diversity, inclusion, equity, violence prevention and reduction, efforts to address academic equity and more. Just Communities process engages teachers, counselors, administrators, students, support staff, parents and other members of the school community in assessing their school community, identifying strategic goals and objectives, and developing concrete plans that unify the school community in efforts to address diversity, equity, and inclusion.