Building Community Through Partnerships

College of Health and Human Services. A young girl holds a Mr. Potato Head toy in a speech therapy clinic.

When it comes to building community, we know that positioning CSULB as a university open to cooperative partnerships is core to our efforts. Creating new cultural, intellectual, and economic value for the region and beyond is our goal and a pillar of our shared vision articulated in Beach 2030.  

In the College of Health and Human Services, roughly 1,700 partnerships that engage students, faculty, staff, and the broader Long Beach community bolster the college’s place as a leader in student achievement and enhancing community connections. Meaningful collaborations are central to our success as an institution, and CHHS is innovating new ways to leverage shared goals that elevate CSULB, its constituents, and the community at large. 

Collaborating For Good 

Strengthening Youth Resilience, a new initiative that places interns from CSULB’s School of Social Work into middle schools and afterschool programs, puts to practice our declaration as a university to prioritize building community.  

SYR aims to support the mental health needs of these young students while increasing the number of field internships for CSULB social work students, who receive stipends for their work.  

Its launch comes at a time when many students, especially middle schoolers, are facing increased need for mental health support, having been “deeply affected” by pandemic-related isolation, SYR program coordinator Tory Cox said earlier this year. The program is made possible through a partnership between CSULB and Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, and Mental Health America Los Angeles. 

By the same token, a collaboration between the Speech-Language and Pathology department and The RiteCare Childhood Language Center of Long Beach is servicing both CSULB students and the community at large by bringing together experts from our university with local industry partners.  

This partnership helped establish a community clinic on CSULB’s campus, providing affordable speech-language care to community members while giving graduate students opportunities to gain necessary clinical experience. Extended hours and clinical services were made possible through a major gift this year from the California Scottish Rite Foundation, a nonprofit that funds RiteCare centers across the country. 

It Takes a Village 

A major renovation to CSULB’s Child and Family Center exemplifies a commitment to fostering a community characterized by a strong sense of belonging, shared governance, and shared responsibility — a hallmark of our focus on cultivating community on our campus.  

Giving credence to the old adage, this center has long been a resource used by many CSULB employees and community members who rely on their “village” for help with childcare, while early childhood professionals in Child Development and Family Studies receive valuable educational training. With recent state funding, we are seizing an opportunity to significantly expand and renovate this facility, a project that will allow the center to double its capacity for childcare while introducing new classrooms, cutting-edge enhancements, and a nature-focused play area.  

The facility, on which renovations began this summer, represents a meaningful example of how CSULB leverages the strengths of its dynamic faculty, staff, and students to bring true value to our community and the region.