Higher Ground a Resource Center

Our mission is to empower one life at a time to REACH, TRANSFORM and ELEVATE their community through love and building character.

Higher Ground's work centers youth and family success in lasting community change.

Having operated for almost 20 years, Tucson residents know us for our previous after-school enrichment work at the David Bradley Wellness Center, creating youth engagement opportunities in neighborhoods with access gaps. Higher Ground now offers multiple forms of community-based work such as Restart SMART Community Schools, our BeMapt™ app, Professional Development, Consulting, AZ Coalition for Community-Schools, and Out-of-School Enrichment Time.

Our primary focus is on leading Arizona's adaptation of the full-service Community Schools Model, Restart SMART. Our school-based teams work directly with youth, families, and schools toward locally-led success. Support Specialists work with individuals to stabilize basic needs, build life skills, and scaffold support. Ultimately, neighborhoods that have full-service Community Schools experience improved student outcomes, stronger families, and more connected networks.

Restart SMART is Higher Ground's adaptation of the Community School Model. We work at schools in Southern Arizona using a trauma-responsive, multi-generational framework. Community School systems have existed in the US for decades with proven results in community empowerment, lower chronic and situational poverty, lower dropout rates, higher attendance, higher rates of attainment for students, and healthier community economic metrics.

Our teams support, streamline, expand, and create systems for schools' existing efforts around:
-Family and community engagement
-Trauma-informed care
-Multi-generation approach
-Behavioral, social, and emotional development
-Workforce & career skills
-Addressing the Eight Dimensions of Wellness
-Executive functions
-Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS)
-Enriched learning time and opportunities
-After-school and summer enrichment programs

After time at a school site, we typically see the following results:
-Decrease in chronic absenteeism
-Increase in average attendance rates
-Increase in average enrollment
-Improved impulsivity, grit, and wellness among caseload students
-Decrease in logged behavioral incidents
-Increased professional development at each site

Higher Ground is redefining success as community contribution by envisioning schools and youth organizations as places for transformation. We embrace a broader definition of success that values community contribution. We inspire families and youth to be part of locally-led lasting improvements. Far too often, individuals facing conditions of poverty, opportunity gaps, and historical trauma believe that leaving a community is what defines success. Our team at Higher Ground believes the opposite. To us, success starts with recognizing our strengths, assets, and abilities. By learning new skills, we can enrich our own communities.

Testimonials

"I would ask a lot of questions at first, but now for example, I trust Higher Ground more than my own family."
- Parent

"It comforts me to think of the transformative work that Higher Ground is doing for individuals, families, and communities. I have hope that our work will be part of systemic change that leads to fewer people living in poverty in Arizona within a generation."
Sidney Jasper, Staff

"Higher Ground allows me to help my community on a broader scale, connecting directly with families and giving the families choices."
Zeke Lara, Staff

"All schools should have a Higher Ground."
- Parent

"What I learned today will help me make better decisions in the future."
- Student

"I learned that no one can make you angry because you have total control of your actions and emotions."
- Student

"As a young child, I grew up in an area that most would consider impoverished, unfavorable and unfortunate. There were times that I would walk home from school and purposely take the route through the nicer neighborhoods to stare at a life that I knew was far out of my reach. As a child, I had no place to go, no one to turn to and most of all no hope in who I was or in a future that didn't involve despair. Twenty years later I can, fortunately, say life and the blessing from others had a different plan for me. Unfortunately, my story is not uncommon for the children of South Tucson and the surrounding areas. This story is common amongst the students at Higher Ground, with one major difference, the students at Higher Ground have a place, someone to turn to and most of all hope, that they can write their own future, regardless of their background. Higher Ground is more than just a building and more than just a number of students we serve. Higher Ground is a home, a safe haven and most importantly it's hope when all other things are impoverished, unfavorable and unfortunate...