Irwin Royster

Solomon Irwin Royster is the Director for Community Engagement and Partnerships at East River Family Strengthening Collaborative (ERFSC) where he is responsible for youth programming and increasing the visibility of ERFSC in the Ward 7 Community. 

Mr. Royster has over 25 years of experience in community engagement, organizing, and advocacy.  He also has dedicated the last 15 years of his work in the areas of positive youth development, teen pregnancy prevention, sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV    prevention and community coalition building. 

Mr. Royster shifted his career path in 2001 from the private for-profit business sector to the not-for-profit sector when he joined Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan (PPMW).  His leadership and foresight were invaluable in the development of an adolescent outreach and early intervention initiative spearheaded by PPMW in 2002.  This initiative served 508 at-risk urban youth in its first year and increased its participation exponentially over a period of three years.  By 2005, PPMW’s adolescent clinic program was serving almost 3,000 urban youth annually.  Mr. Royster developed youth-focused peer-led workshops that were implemented in PPMW’s adolescent clinics throughout the Washington Metropolitan Area.  These workshops were commonly known as the Tuesdays R 4TeenzOnly sessions and within a few months of the implementation of adolescent workshops Mr. Royster developed, designed and launched a website (www.4teenzonly.com) specifically to promote and engage urban youth to participate in the teen workshops at the PPMW’s adolescent clinics.

In 2005, under the direction of Mr. Royster, PPMW opened The Ophelia Egypt Program Center, a 5,500 square foot retail facility adjacent to the Ophelia Egypt Health Center. Mr. Royster served as the Program Director for the Center and through his leadership and vision the Center became a central hub for youth, their friends, parents and the community.  In its early days, the Center provided comprehensive reproductive health education, mental health screening and other services, substance abuse, STD and HIV testing and counseling, workforce development services, and clothes closet for both men and women.

Mr. Royster serves on many boards and committees in the metropolitan area advising on community building and positive youth development while furthering his education in Public Health.