Seeing What’s Already There: JEP’s New Training Highlights Community Resources

When Beth Levinson was asked to write a book review about preparing university students for community-engaged work , she discovered something both inspiring and frustrating. The book emphasized approaching community partnerships with humility and an asset-based mindset – principles JEP wholeheartedly embraces. She noticed, though, how the book offered little guidance on how to practically  implement these ideals into practice.

“The book did not have a lot of really great resources to do this,” she explains. “They said it’s just really important to do it, and I thought, I totally agree. So that’s when I was starting to think about what could be a good way of getting our students to think about actually implementing the principles of ethical engagement through an asset based mindset.”

That gap between theory and practice led Levinson, JEP’s Program Administrator, to develop something entirely new: an asset mapping training session that debuted during this summer’s student leadership training. The exercise challenges students to move beyond abstract concepts of humility and community partnership toward concrete ways of seeing and honoring the resources that already exist in the communities they engage with.

The training emerged from Levinson’s recognition that community-engaged work often operates from a deficit mindset. “A lot of students start off viewing community-engaged work from a deficit mindset, because they only hear about what the community is lacking,” she notes. Simply flipping to an asset-only perspective creates its own problems, though. “You can totally overstep when introducing asset-based thinking to having blinders to all of the challenges, the systemic and historical barriers that a lot of these families face,” Levinson adds. “We did not want them to go in with these rose-colored glasses, either, pretending everything is fine.” It has to be about balance and nuance. 

Traditional asset mapping involves community members directly sharing their perspectives on neighborhood strengths. JEP had to adapt this approach since students complete the exercise before meeting their community partners. “One of the biggest hurdles to doing asset-based mapping is that it’s really supposed to happen in the same room with our community partners,” Levinson acknowledges. “So we had to adapt asset-based mapping from the perspective of our students as visitors. At the same time, we also had to acknowledge that a number of our student leaders are actually not visitors. Rather, they were students at the schools they are now engaging with through our program. How can we ethically incorporate both perspectives into this new training session?”

The adapted exercise asks students to consider: As visitors and collaborators, what resources do they observe? What experiences have they had working with teachers, administrators, and parents? What structural elements support the work? What resources exist that might be leveraged to address the challenges? 

For student leaders involved in developing the training, the motivation was deeply personal. Itzel, one of JEP’s Program Assistants who helped plan the training, explained: “Sometimes when I’m reading students’ first few essays they get really caught up in the negatives about South LA, and they talk a lot about how it’s a dangerous community, or maybe how they’re scared to go to their sites.” Having lived around the University Park Campus for a while now, she knows a different reality. “I’ve seen a lot of positives. If we are talking about assets I would definitely consider the Salvadoran Corridor and a lot of the cultural food that we have available to us. The many museums in close proximity, too. I wanted to incorporate that more into the training aspect so that students start off not so clouded by these negative stereotypes about South LA.”

The training revealed resources many student leaders didn’t even know existed. ReadersPLUS Program Assistant Isaias shared discoveries during the exercise that he shared with the people he was paired up with: Mercado La Paloma, a community space and food market right across the 110 that provides opportunities for low-income entrepreneurs; the Esperanza housing community; and the extensive resources at the Los Angeles Public Library. “A lot of students come with a specific picture of the community around USC,” Isaias noted. “Having that in mind and actually being here and experiencing the community is a lot different than what’s being said. I loved sharing the many resources I know about with my group and learned about some new ones myself.”

The pilot training also provided insights for improvement. Levinson was surprised to discover that “all of the group’s asset maps included a significant amount of assets related to campus.” While USC certainly serves as a resource to the surrounding community, the training needed adjustment to help students truly focus on the communities where they work.

The solution involves helping students mentally journey from campus to their sites. Future iterations will include exercises where students trace their commute: “What are you seeing on your way? Who are you seeing? What buildings? What businesses? What languages are being spoken? Do you hear music? What food is being sold? This way, their brains really do leave campus and they begin to really see the communities in which they engage through JEP.”

This semester, Levinson is integrating asset mapping principles into ReadersPLUS’ tutor training, beginning with demographic studies of school sites followed by asset mapping exercises with program coordinators. “When we say ‘work with the community,’ that means that we’re partners, we’re collaborators. Working with means recognizing and honoring these resources and the expertise,” she explains.

The asset mapping training represents JEP’s commitment to evolving its approach based on both research and real-world experience. By moving beyond theoretical discussions toward practical exercises that shape how students see and engage with their service sites, the program ensures that principles of humility and asset-based thinking translate into meaningful, ethical and action-oriented engagement.