Discovering Strengths at Chicago Youth Centers

Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) has brought transformative youth programming to Chicago communities in need for more than six decades. Through these early learning, afterschool, and summer offerings, CYC helps each child discover their own unique strengths, talents, and interests. Our intentional emphasis on hands-on engagement and social-emotional learning place value on every student’s vast potential, setting the stage for bright futures filled with possibility.

What better way to support our children and families’ strengths than by unlocking our own as well?  

CYC is dedicated to building a strong company culture, and ensuring every member of our team feels seen and valued. To support this, we implemented CliftonStrengths across the leadership team three years ago as part of an emotional intelligence training series with the EI Leadership Institute. In an effort to not only strengthen but bond and empower our robust team, CYC started utilizing CliftonStrengths throughout the entire agency in the fall of 2020.

To discover their top strengths, staff members take an assessment that measures their talents and categorizes them into 34 themes. Themes include strengths such as positivity, command, focus, and input, and they each fall under four specific domains: strategic thinking, relationship building, influencing, and executing. Each theme presents the individual with a way to describe what they do best naturally. 

It is no surprise that our team has a strong presence of relationship building, as a vast majority of our staff work one-on-one with youth and families. The most common strength within this category for our staff? Positivity! 

So why is this such an important aspect of CYC’s strategy and team-building efforts? A strengths-based approach helps answer questions about improving teamwork, team dynamics, and collaboration. By focusing on our staff’s strengths, we can find a common language for communicating with one another, leading to improvements in collaborations and heightening our understanding. In turn, we are set up to better serve our communities, families, and children through our programs, fundraising efforts, and more. 

Dushunda Henderson, CYC’s Director of Community Schools has found success within herself and her team through CliftonStrengths. “CliftonStrengths has really helped me tap into my leadership skills and how I allow my team to lead,” she said. “Our team is really connecting and exploring the idea of being vulnerable and supporting one another.” 

CYC’s Senior Director of Early Childhood Education, Talina Carter-Bowie, has used CliftonStrengths to get to know members of her team on an individual level and figure out how to best work together as a group.

“What I found to be most helpful is how each of the team members plays such a valuable role when understanding how the strengths work together for the good of the team,” she said. “I am also working to understand my strengths more and how I can utilize them to increase my leadership capacity, while relating, empowering and supporting my team.” 

During CYC’s recent All-Staff Training, the entire team learned more about speaking to their strengths, what strength out of their top five they identify with most, and how this strength shows up in their professional and everyday life.

“CliftonStrengths has been a powerful tool to build relationships with individual team members as well as maximize the talents of the CYC team as a whole,” said Tina Ayala, Senior Director of Program and Operations, School Age and Teens. 

CYC recognizes that the best way to support our children, families, and communities is to make sure our staff has a strong foundation. Learning is a lifelong process, and we want to empower one another to always be in pursuit of knowledge. By relying on our strengths, we become more compassionate leaders, and there is no limit to what we can accomplish. CYC looks forward to continuing our pursuit of strengths-based learning, and building the strongest team possible.