by Lisa Clancy, Thread STL coordinator

On October 27, nearly 200 community leaders and stakeholders gathered at the Nine Network of Public Media for Wyman’s 6th annual Saigh Symposium. This year’s Symposium focused on the role of community partnerships and coalitions as an essential strategy for igniting greater outcomes not only for young people, but for our entire region. Attendees heard from two keynote speakers, Christina Holt and Dr. Pennie Foster-Fishman, as well as a panel of local leaders and practitioners. Both keynote speakers spoke of best practices in partnerships work and provided practical tools and resources to guide partnerships and coalitions to systems-changing impact.

My takeaway? The “wicked” complexity of community problems is ripe in “wicked opportunities” to build our capacities as change agents to address the grand issues facing us. But we, those of us committed to being social change agents, must be ready to learn while doing. And thanks to people like Christina and Dr. Pennie, there’s lots of resources to help us do this important work. I look forward to working with Thread STL to do exactly that– build our own capacity as partnership and coalition professionals so that we can ignite the outcomes our region needs.

A copy of Dr. Pennie Foster-Fishman’s slides can be accessed here, and thanks to our friends at the Nine Network, you can view the entire Saigh Symposium below.