8:00am ~ Check-in is OPEN!  Welcome Everyone. Come in and explore, visit a sponsor table, find a new colleague 😉

8:30am – 9:15am ~ Welcome –- Why do we need Braided Futures? Let’s talk Chaos, Community and bringing it together. Jo Burns

9:15am – 9:45am ~ Network Mapping 101 – Elizabeth “Elle” Marzec

Description: Step into a highly interactive session designed to help you see—and strategically strengthen—the network that powers your work. Across sectors like parks, recreation, public health, libraries, education, and the built environment, strong relationships are the foundation of healthier, more connected communities. In this hands-on experience, you’ll map your current network, uncover key connectors and collaboration hubs, and identify critical gaps—especially individuals and partners who would benefit from being meaningfully included. You’ll leave with a clearer picture of who is in your network, who is missing, and where new relationships can spark greater impact.

Learning Objectives: 1.Articulate who is in the participant’s network. 2. Pinpoint who is not in the participant’s network but would benefit from inclusion. 3. Identify opportunities to grow the participant’s network.

9:50 am – 10:35 am ~ Returning Learning to the Community: One Lab School’s Approach – Kyle Gamba, La Luz Education and La Luz Students

Description: Across Colorado, schools and community organizations share a common challenge: how to move beyond one-off partnerships to meaningful, youth-centered collaboration that strengthens entire communities. This interactive session offers a practical vision for community-partnered education, grounded in the spirit of “Braided Futures.” Participants will explore a flexible “menu” framework that helps organizations—across parks, libraries, public health, nonprofits, and community leaders—identify accessible, capacity-aligned ways to engage with young people. Through real-world examples and youth perspectives, attendees will see how cross-sector partnerships can deepen learning, foster belonging, and expand impact. The session concludes with facilitated small-group conversations where participants identify actionable steps to strengthen collaboration within their own sector and across others. Participants will leave with clear, practical next steps—and an invitation to help braid stronger, more connected communities together.

Learning Objectives: 1.Identify at least two key principles of community-partnered learning practiced by youth and educators at La Luz that they believe are relevant to their own sector or organization. 2. Identify one specific action their organization will pilot or explore in the next six months to strengthen youth-centered community partnership and share that commitment during small-group discussion. 3.Draft a brief action statement describing how their organization could shift from transactional partnerships to relational, youth-centered collaboration. 4.Articulate one barrier they anticipate in building stronger school-community partnerships and one strategy to address it.

10:40am – 10:55am~ Healthy Snack Break – Grab some Coffee/Tea – Get Moving, Connect with Colleagues, Visit Sponsors

11:00am – 11:30am ~  Supporting the Smiling Faces of Parks & Open Space: A Partnership between Jeffco Open Space and CU Public Health School – Virginia Visconti, Sophie Brenna, Sophie Semenjuk, and Annie Goyanes

Description: This session highlights a partnership between Jefferson County Parks & Open Space (JCPOS) and the Colorado School of Public Health, where students, faculty, and practitioners collaborated on a community health assessment exploring the mental health benefits of volunteering. Through volunteer focus groups, the team identified key themes including connection, purpose, personal growth, environmental stewardship, and the challenges of service. Insights from the project informed a new survey question bank for JCPOS and provided real-world learning for emerging public health professionals.

Learning Objectives: 1.Identify practices to support and sustain successful community-academic partnerships. 2.Design community-driven assessments. 2 Explain the mental health benefits of volunteering.

11:35am – 11:50am ~ Movement Break

11:50 am - 12:20pm ~ Continuum of Compassion: Balancing Care, Compliance and Community – Haley Stephenson and Lauren O’Neill

Description: When communities work together, compassionate and effective responses to homelessness become possible. This session highlights how Westminster’s Park Rangers and Homeless Navigation team collaborate across sectors to implement a “Continuum of Compassion” approach—aligning enforcement with empathy, and compliance with connection. We’ll explore how coordinated strategies, shared roles, and strong partnerships can better serve individuals experiencing homelessness while maintaining safe, welcoming public spaces. Attendees will gain real-world examples, key lessons, and practical steps to build collaborative, community-centered solutions in their own systems.

Learning Objectives: 1. Attendees will be introduced to strategies for initiating new protocols to address homelessness with leadership. 2.Attendees will consider options for enforcement protocols in combination with effective resource deployment that they can apply in their community .3.Attendees will analyze how resource-sharing and role clarity can expand system capacity despite staffing and funding limitations.

12:20pm – 1:20pm ~  Lunch + Networking, Connection Outside

1:25pm – 1:55pm ~ Supporting Youth and Educators in Navigating Eco-distress, Building Solidarity and Cultivating Hope – Julia Senecal, Sarah Bexell and Graduate Student

Description: The prevalence of “eco-distress" - the natural and complex emotional responses to the realities of global environmental change and the multiple, interconnected crises facing humanity - is on the rise, especially in our young people. Institutions serving youth, including schools, rec centers, libraries, and many other ‘third places,’ have an imperative to provide responsive and inclusive programming that offers young people authentic support grounded in trust, power-sharing, and a collective and intergenerational commitment to co-creating a truly just, joyful, and regenerative future. This session will share findings from a recent eco-distress survey completed at the University of Denver, along with examples of programming that are being implemented to support the community in navigating these challenges together. 

Learning Objectives: 1.Participants describe the difference between “sustainable” and “regenerative” and how the regenerative paradigm is rooted in a deep commitment to social-ecological justice. 2.Participants will be able to define “eco-distress” and explain how it is showing up in young people around the world and on a Denver metro area college campus. 3.Participants will examine the ways in which the university is responding to increased levels of eco-distress across the campus community, identifying concrete examples of programs that offer support and community to students, staff, and faculty. 4. Participants will discuss how they have seen eco-distress show up in their settings, and how they might consider creating or tweaking programming (using examples provided as inspiration, or not) to craft community that fosters safety, inclusion, and perhaps even joy amidst chaos and uncertainty.

2:00pm – 2:30pm ~  Panel discussion across sectors – Crafting Community Amid Chaos – Panelists TBD

2:35pm – 2:50pm ~ Qigong Break - Pos Ryant, Apprentice of Peace Youth Organization (AOPYO)

2:50pm – 3:20pm ~ Building Capacity: Moving Ideas Forward When Resources are Scarce – Sarah Konradi

Description: As communities face compounding challenges—political uncertainty, shrinking budgets, climate impacts, and widening inequities—capacity building has emerged as a powerful, often under recognized way to move ideas into action.

This session explores how capacity building strengthens partnerships, redistributes power, and creates momentum, especially in communities that are under resourced but rich in vision. Drawing from real-world projects across planning, public space, health, and education, this session will share examples of how technical assistance, shared tools, and long term relationships have helped communities clarify priorities, align partners, and take next steps—even amid chaos. Participants will engage in guided conversation to examine their own constraints and assets and will leave with practical frameworks and resources that can be adapted across sectors to support community driven progress.

Learning Objectives: 1.Describe at least three capacity building strategies used to advance community led projects in under resourced contexts. 2.Identify key conditions that support equitable partnerships and shared decision making across sectors. 3.Provide examples of tools and resources that support communities and organizations in moving from ideas to coordinated action.

3:20pm  - 3:40pm ~ Arlosoul Highlights and Reflection on the Day – Chris Chopyak, Pos Ryant + the Artists

3:40pm – 3:55pm ~ Final  Braiding Future activities – the individual braids into something collective.  What’s next?!? – Succession planning for the future of PHPR Collaborative. If interested join us – QR code sign up – Jo Burns

3:55pm - 4:00pm ~Closing Remarks- Evaluation and Thank you! - Colorado PHPR Collaborative Crew – Russ Carson

4:00pm to 6:00ish~ Healthy Happy Hour  - BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse –  10446 Town Center Drive, Westminster, CO 80021 (a mere 1.3 miles from the Rec Center)

PHPR Summit Planning Team: 

Jaclynn Alvarez –Trails Park and Recreation District; Elizabeth Belton – Town of Erie; Tori Bloom - Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; Jo Burns – Jo Burns Connects LLC; Russ Carson – Community Impact Collaborative; Dana Coelho – US Forest Service; Rachel Hungerbuhler – Colorado Parks & Recreation Association;  Molly Kadota - Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; Bill Mahar – Norris Design; Jill Matlock – Weld County Public Health; Nicole Reeves – Grand Junction Parks & Recreation; Sarah Schwallier – City of Northglenn Parks, Recreation & Culture; Samantha Serrano – National Recreation and Park Association; Kristen Steffes - Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment;  Deidra Tenorio – Widefield Parks & Recreation