YCYCI Partners
Yolo County Youth Civic Initiative
Mission statement
Yolo County Youth Civic Initiative (YCYCI) seeks to collaborate to build youth awareness and understanding in civic engagement by creating, promoting and enhancing school/community efforts that increase youth involvement in the civic process.
Launched in 2017, the Yolo County Youth Civic Initiative (YCYCI) is a collaborative effort from various partners, including the Yolo County Office of Education, Yolo County Office of Assessor/Clerk-Recorder/Elections, Baylor University's School of Education, and the History Project at UC Davis.
About the Initiative
YCYCI is working to increase civic engagement by building teacher and student awareness and understanding, connecting youth involvement in the civic process with the end result of creating, promoting, and enhancing school and community improvement of efforts.
Beginning in 2017, YCYCI collaborated to develop an initial draft curriculum for grade twelve government courses to begin to accomplish these goals. This draft was developed through the receipt of input from state and local education leaders and through a pilot recruitment of select Yolo County teachers. This next phase of the project will allow us to improve the curriculum and move closer to our goals.
YCYCI Awarded Civic Engagement Grant
In 2020, YCYCI was announced as one of six recipients of the LIFT Grant Initiative, a pilot program dedicated to the awareness of, and engagement with, the First Amendment freedoms of speech, expression, and a free press. The grant was funded through the James B. McClatchy Foundation. View the LIFT Grants Initiative overview or the 2020 press release.
In 2022, the James B. McClatchy Foundation announced it would continue to support YCYCI by awarding funding to the program via grants focused on civic engagement and local journalism. View the 2022 press release.
Our Continued Work
YCYCI is continuing its work to revise the draft curriculum to best meet the needs of students. Through a teacher collaborative facilitated by the History Project at UC Davis, the partnership will support and provide coaching to assist the teachers' instruction and observe student results. The partnership will collect student work and feedback, analyze that data, and incorporate their findings into a second revision of the curriculum.
