This study examined how a community coalition, focused on prevention efforts, can aid in bridging resources between community organizations in a resource‐deprived area. We also explored how it may serve as a venue to support significant changes to the community, adults, and youth who live there. Drawing on 18 individual interviews with adult coalition members from various community organizations, in a large, underserved city in the northeastern United States, we examined these data for narrations of the coalition's place within the broader prevention community and how the coalition may be an organizational venue for collective voice. We were specifically interested in hearing if these adult community members saw the coalition as filling a gap within their community. Our data revealed that while organizations within the community have been decimated due to reduced funding, the present coalition aided in meeting a variety of needs. These needs included the facilitation of community voice while helping to bridge resources between organizations, which would otherwise work alone.

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We explore the experiences of urban youth of color, as well as perceptions, of feeling disconnected and having an overall negative sense of community (SOC). Drawing on data from 11 focus groups, youth (N = 59) describe their communities and lived experiences. We document several themes put forward through the lens of SOC and community connection that highlight perceived lack of membership, needs fulfillment, influence, and overall emotional connection to their community. Unpacking youth's perceptions of their community, we suggest that—in the face of such realities—community‐based organizations, such as those the youth find themselves in, aid in creating connectedness and help heal youth from the effects of social conditions experienced daily.

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In-depth, qualitative interviewing was employed to describe processes and competencies experienced by family science interns, who practiced in a high-risk ecological context. Twenty interns from a 3-year period were recruited. All had interned on the same federally funded, HIV/substance abuse prevention grant in the same focal city. Within this sample, it was determined that experiential learning-vis-a-vis the internship-facilitated both intrapersonal processes and ecological competencies for family science interns, who may otherwise have lacked this knowledge when assuming professional roles. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.