Our Partnership with Community Solutions: Building Stronger Support for Young People

Partnership has been central to Open Doors from the beginning. As the program has grown, organizations, experts, and young people across California have helped us strengthen the training, expand its reach, and create learning experiences grounded in the needs of youth and the adults who support them.

Community Solutions has been one of those partners.

Open Doors Training equips adults who work with and support young people ages 12–25 with practical tools for navigating conversations around substance use and other behavioral health challenges. Our curriculum centers youth voice and helps participants build skills for engaging young people with curiosity, connection, and respect for their autonomy.

Community Solutions serves Santa Clara and San Benito counties by providing a continuum of services spanning mental health, gender-based violence, substance use treatment, housing, legal support, care management, and more. Through its CS Learning Training Institute, the organization also provides trauma-informed and culturally responsive learning and development for staff, partners, and community members.

Over the past two years, Community Solutions brought that experience and perspective to Open Doors. They’ve helped shape our approach to facilitation while building capacity for more youth-serving adults to bring Open Doors into their work and communities.

Developing Our Community Facilitator Training

Community Solutions became a thought partner in developing the Open Doors Community Facilitator Training (CFT), a two-day training that prepares Core Training graduates to become Open Doors facilitators. Participants build the skills and confidence to lead the Core Training curriculum themselves, helping bring Open Doors to more youth-serving adults and communities across California.

The Community Solutions team helped shape CFT from the ground up, contributing their expertise in facilitation, adult learning, and learner engagement. Their input was especially valuable in developing facilitation skills and strategies for creating training spaces where participants feel welcomed, engaged, and able to contribute.

For Nicole Irigoyen, Director of Workforce Development at Community Solutions, being part of the program’s development meant seeing Open Doors evolve from an idea into a growing statewide initiative.

“It has been an honor to work closely with the Open Doors team from almost the start of the project,” Nicole shared. “Starting from the start, with no slides, no facilitator outlines, just a big dream and a specific vision, was really special.”

That process included an important question familiar to anyone developing training: Will this land?

Answering it meant bringing together people with different experiences and perspectives, testing ideas, gathering feedback, and refining the curriculum. Nicole also focused on accessibility by creating learning environments where different kinds of learners can feel welcomed, engaged, and seen.

“I am most proud that my contributions really centered on helping all kinds of different humans see themselves and the youth they work with in the curriculum,” she said.

Bringing Open Doors to the Bay Area

Community Solutions’ role went beyond helping shape the Community Facilitator Training. Their team also put that work into practice, becoming an important part of expanding Open Doors throughout Santa Clara County and the greater Bay Area.

From October 2025 through August 2026, Community Solutions facilitators Nicole Irigoyen, Rebeca Chavez, Adam Fonseca, and Deanna Canales-Rodriguez led 11 Open Doors Core Trainings and one Community Facilitator Training in their region. They also offered several booster trainings, giving participants opportunities to keep building their skills beyond the Core Training.

Through this work, Community Solutions helped create a regional hub for Open Doors by connecting youth-serving adults with training, continued learning, and one another.

For Community Solutions’ Workforce Development Facilitator Rebeca Chavez, facilitating Open Doors became another way to build those connections. “Being a facilitator for the Open Doors training felt like a connector to the community,” Rebeca reflected. “I was able to have meaningful conversations with folks who care about the youth they serve.”

She especially valued hearing from participants about what happened after a training — especially when ideas discussed in the room began showing up in their work with young people.

“Hearing their stories and reflections felt affirming in that the work is pushing towards doing good.”

Centering Youth Voice

One value that connected Community Solutions and Open Doors was a commitment to creating spaces where people are seen, heard, and valued.

For Nicole, one of the partnership’s greatest successes was the role young people played in shaping Open Doors — not simply as people the program is intended to serve, but as stakeholders whose knowledge and experiences matter. “This training uplifts youth’s perspectives, experiences, and inherent value,” she reflected.

That commitment is central to Open Doors. The program was developed with youth voice at its foundation and encourages youth-serving adults to approach conversations with curiosity, cultural humility, and respect for young people’s autonomy and lived experience.

Nicole remembers the launch of what was then called the Train-the-Trainer program (now renamed the Community Facilitator Training) in Sacramento as an especially meaningful moment.

“It was energizing to see so many people come together with the mindset to support, grow the program, and provide feedback to strengthen it.”

Beyond Trainings

Of course, partnerships aren’t built only through curricula, training rooms, and program milestones. Sometimes they’re built over lunch.

Crystal Blanton, Open Doors Deputy Director, remembers facilitating alongside the Community Solutions team both at their Gilroy facility and in training spaces elsewhere in California.

“Partnering with Nicole Irigoyen brought a wealth of experience, connection and laughter to our spaces,” Crystal shared.

Whether navigating construction happening around a training in Downtown Los Angeles or facilitating with the technology available at Community Solutions’ Gilroy space, there was always room, Crystal remembers, “to share a meal and lots of laughter.”

Those moments of connection were part of what made the partnership meaningful.

“We are deeply grateful to the Community Solutions team for their partnership over the past year,” said Tia Cochran-Otis, Director of Community Restoration & Consultation for Open Doors. “Under Nicole Irigoyen’s leadership, the team embraced this project with curiosity, courage, and a willingness to take on challenges alongside us.”

“Together, we took risks and created new opportunities for youth-serving adults. In the process, we built community, strengthened connection, and fostered hope.”

Carrying the Work Forward

The impact of our partnership doesn’t end when a training does.

It continues through the conversations participants have with young people, the approaches they bring back to their organizations, the facilitators who share what they’ve learned with others, and the connections built across communities.

We are grateful to Nicole, Rebeca, Adam, Deanna, and the entire Community Solutions team for the expertise, care, humor, and humanity they brought to Open Doors… and for everything we built together.

Their contributions will remain part of the program as Open Doors continues creating opportunities for youth-serving adults across California to learn, connect, and strengthen the ways they support young people.

Learn more about our Core Training program and opportunities to become a Community Facilitator