This Work Is Personal.
And It’s Strategic.
Dr. Daye is a nationally minded youth systems strategist whose work bridges lived experience, leadership, and performance improvement to help communities redesign how young people are supported through critical life transitions.
I’ve lived the transition.
Then I learned how to lead it.
I am Dr. Dayeshell, known professionally as Dr. Daye, an executive leader, organizational operator, and change strategist. For more than two decades, I’ve helped build, stabilize, and lead a complex, dual-entity human services organization, managing people, programs, budgets, compliance, and systems, not from a distance, but from inside the work.
As Chief Operating Officer of My People Clinical and Community Services, a dual-entity organization, I’ve spent my career translating vision into the infrastructure required to deliver on it. Youth transition into adulthood is where I now apply that experience, not the boundary of it.
That experience shaped how I see youth transitions today. I know firsthand that readiness isn’t something that magically appears at graduation. It’s built or missed in the years leading up to it.
I’ve lived youth transition from every angle as a student, as a parent of college students, and as a senior leader inside youth-serving systems. That layered perspective is what grounds my work now. I don’t approach youth readiness as a theory or a talking point. I approach it as a reality systems must prepare for long before the ceremony.
I don’t just talk about systems.
I build them.
Over the last two decades, I’ve led and supported youth work across education, nonprofit, and community systems.
As Chief Operating Officer of My People Community and Clinical Services, a dual-entity organization providing community-based programming, mentoring, and behavioral health support, I've overseen programs, staff, budgets, compliance, and outcomes not from a distance, but from inside the work.
Beyond operations, I've created platforms and frameworks that help adults see youth more clearly and act more intentional
This work lives at the intersection of insight and execution. Every tool I build exists because a system needed clarity not theory.
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Designed and led female empowerment conferences for nine consecutive years
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Created and scaled youth transition programs, including the Life After High School Program
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Collaborated with Cornell University’s ACT for Youth Center to co-author a youth transition practice guide
Produced two documentaries, 180 Seconds of Freedom and The Black Bear Project, elevating community voice
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Developed SEE360™, a proprietary conditions-based insight system
Board of Directors, Urban League of Greater Hartford
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My work is grounded in performance improvement leadership.
I hold a doctorate in education with a specialization in performance improvement leadership. That training shapes how I approach every engagement helping leaders move systems from their current reality to their desired reality with intention, data, and accountability.
I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions or trend-based interventions. I believe in:
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diagnosing systems honestly
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elevating youth voice as data
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aligning adults around shared responsibility
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and building structures that actually work
This is where strategy meets humanity.
Youth transitions are a system responsibility.
Young people are navigating complex transitions and life decisions in a world that is more demanding than ever. When systems rely on surface indicators or fragmented approaches, they miss what actually drives readiness and long-term success.
My work exists to change that.
I partner with leaders who are ready to move beyond assumptions and lead with clarity — building systems that reflect the full reality of the young people they serve.
