Touching lives, improving our community
The USF Collaborative for Children, Families and Communities
A recognized, central point of contact, facilitator and matchmaker for new partnerships, the USF Collaborative brings together University faculty and students, nationally known researchers, community service organizations and professionals, youth, neighborhood activists, government officials and ordinary moms and dads to build a better Tampa Bay community. We both develop and apply knowledge to build strong children, families and neighborhoods in order to make Tampa Bay a great place to live, work and play.
We address issues as diverse as teen resilience, elder care, community assets, children’s literacy needs and family strengths through two Working Groups of faculty and community partners – Resilience and Protective Factors and Neighborhoods and Communities. We strive to create sustained, collaborative relationships, where interdisciplinary teams work as co-learners in diverse settings.
The Collaborative does not conduct any research itself. Instead, we award grants to faculty conducting interdisciplinary field research. We also offer summer internships for high school students, publish a quarterly newsletter and sponsor workshops and conferences throughout the year.
Our Current Focus
We’re finding ways to create resilience in adolescents and increase their levels of social capital. We continue to look for ways we can increase their connections with the community, helping to stimulate their own feelings of personal competency, responsibility and expectations for life.
Join Us!
If you find yourself saying, “I want to help make my community a better place to live,” then you are our type of person and we want to hear from you. Put your interests and talents and ideas in an email, and send it to info@usfcollab.usf.edu.
USF Collaborative Director, Judith Jetson, weaves ribbons of hope for the future together to form an American flag at a St. Petersburg community event.