59 The project is ongoing and data about whether child wellbeing outcomes have improved over time will be released in 2022. The second project – The Basic Package of Support for youth not in employment, education or training – led by myself in partnership with Associate Professor Ariane De Lannoy at SALDRU, UCT will pilot a communities of practice approach in three communities. It will bring together local colleges, work-seeker support programmes, health and mental health support facilities, childcare programmes and food support programmes, among others, to collaboratively learn about the challenges that these youth face, and how to better support them. The project has been in the research and design phase in 2019 and 2020, with young people and community stakeholders being consulted on the programme design. Feedback from these stakeholders has been overwhelmingly positive. In late 2021 we hosted our first community of practice workshop with fifteen service providers in Atlantis, Western Cape and received confirmation of funding to roll out a second site in Orange Farm in 2022. Community partners in Atlantis, Western Cape sharing their vision for youth in the area. Onboarding community partners by explaining what a community of practice is Such an approach promises to ensure that young people can connect to the wide range of services and opportunities they need to break down the many barriers they face as they seek to move into learning and earning. In addition to these two flagship projects the centre has been engaged in several smaller projects covering issues of the future of work, the impact of Covid-19 on families and caregivers, and understanding the nature of youth social mobility in developing contexts. The 22nd Biennial Conference of the International Consortium for Social Development A major highlight of 2021 was that the CSDA hosted the 22nd Biennial Conference of the International Consortium for Social Development. This conference, hosted online from 13-16 July, brought together over 300 development scholars, practitioners, decision makers and development agents from 42 countries across 6 continents to share knowledge, policy and practice solutions to address the issues of our times. Over 4 days we heard over 240 presentations and created over 80 hours of social development focused content. Around a third of the registrations were from students (international and local). The conference was delivered completely online with few technical glitches, despite the unrest that was occurring around us. Most importantly, besides the numbers, many delegates commented on the high quality of the content - not just keynotes and plenaries but the general conference presentations too. There was agreement amongst those who wrote that the conference set a high standard for future ICSD conferences. Awards and recognition During the conference the ICSD Africa branch was launched. I was nominated to be the chair of the branch and look forward to bringing social development scholars across the continent together. Several awards were made at the conference too. The CSDA as an entity; Leila and myself each won a Leadership in International Social Development Award and the ICSD also awarded Tessa Hochfeld, a longstanding CSDA staff member and friend, the same award posthumously in recognition of her academic contributions to the field.
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