A year of inspired, collaborative work to transform a desperately challenged inner-city school has produced so many positive changes that those involved are now planning to transform their coordinated interventions into a model which can be replicated in similar schools across Jamaica.

The heroes are the Denham Town High School Stakeholders Group, launched in March 2023. The proud and happy recipients are the school and the wider community. The transformation has impacted the school’s teachers, administrators, students and families over the past year.

Playing a critical role is The MultiCare Youth Foundation’s (MYF) Executive Director Alicia Glasgow Gentles, who responded to a desperate call for additional help from the school a year ago. Her solution was to convene a powerful stakeholder group to coordinate the implementation of tailored and layered results-based social interventions.

Members include the ministries of education and youth and national security; The MYF; the Creative Language Based Learning (CLBL) Foundation; JMMB Joan Duncan Foundation; Crime Stop Jamaica and representatives of the school’s leadership, administrative and teaching staff, and parents. In 2024 Head Boy Danique Roach also joined as a student representative, as did Marvin Thompson, vice-president of the Parent Teachers’ Association.

Their joint achievements have ranged from improving numeracy and literacy, student attendance and behaviour, to progress in governance and leadership. This has been no small accomplishment, as Denham Town High School was one of the most challenged secondary schools under the Inter-Ministerial School Support Strategy. This provides targeted support to schools located within or serving the declared zones of special operations.

Yet a series of outstanding improvements have taken place. Youth interventions have included literacy, passport to success life (PTS) and employability skills, cognitive behavioural therapy, internships, mentorship, vocational skills referrals and civil document acquisition. Capacity building has included CLBL professional development for teachers of literacy, conversations for greatness (mindset and attitude adjustments) for the school’s leadership and entire staff complement and PTS life skills training of teacher trainers and coaches.

Social support has included donations by NCB Foundation and Carlisa Enterprises and back-to-school support for students and their parents from Caribbean Cement Company/CEMEX. Additionally, by way of current MYF projects being implemented in Denham Town, the school has also benefitted from the donation of a mural through MYF’s partner Crime Stop Jamaica via the USAID Positive Pathways programme.

In reiterating their gratitude to the stakeholders, the school community noted several unanticipated benefits they were happy to share.

For example, literacy teacher Howard Peart shared that as students improved in their literacy skills, many of them began doing better in their academic subjects, and even moving to the top of the class in their exam results. And The Joan Duncan Foundation, which is funding its conversations for greatness workshops as a contribution to the consortium, has also agreed to provide coaching for up to four additional months, to support new paradigms through which greatness and transformational leadership can emerge at Denham Town High School.

While the Denham Town High School community rejoiced in their transformation; however, as Dean of Discipline Christine Hewes-Johnson noted, “We understand that what we are doing is far bigger than us…”

This was emphasised by Glasgow Gentles who pointed out that the 2024 stakeholders’ meeting held on March 7 was not only to review progress.

“The Denham Town High School Stakeholder Group is also being reconvened to chart a path forward for the co-creation of a sustained, coordinated and results-driven programme design that can be effectively funded and executed. We intend that the work of the consortium will also prove to be successful in its efficacy for replication in similar schools across the island. We therefore plan to create a framework to pilot and test a collective impact model that can be documented with demonstrated, tangible results.

“Following this, we plan to submit a concept note for consideration within the relevant Government ministries, departments and agencies, and to garner the support of select local and international development partners, the private sector and civil society for the execution of a pilot within similar schools in marginalised communities across the island,” she said.