Changing the landscape of youth culture.

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Our youth currently face a rapidly changing landscape of culture combined with access to more information and autonomy than they have ever had. This has truly allowed the youth to create their own identity and culture primarily without adult interference. Youth have a powerful level of influence on our larger culture, many of whom have not had opportunities to develop soft skills like emotional intelligence and conflict resolution that would come with healthy adult guardian and mentor relationships. Without the exposure to the language and understanding of their inner world, many youth develop survival skills that stunt their emotional growth and inhibit the development of healthy conflict resolution skills. These youth grow up and become community members with stunted emotional development and unhealthy forms of conflict resolution and relationship building. This leads inevitably to involvement in the justice system and risks incarceration.

With access to our youth center, LA youth will have a safe space to go to when life feels overwhelming and out of hand. This grant will support the hiring of a multiple staff members including a licensed clinical social worker and/or LMFT. Our work encourages youth to address the painful experiences that go unnoticed and undressed at home and at school so our staff need adequate trauma informed care training. Our goal is to end justice involvement for our youth completely. We believe that with the right tools and skillset our youth can become agents of change in their communities. This means that when youth come to our center for for example tutoring, they will not only get the academic support that they need, but they will be meeting with a volunteer who will be trained and able to address the shame and frustration that comes with being behind academically as well as the pressure that many of our youth have of being a first generation graduate. This center will be a refuge where they will be able to receive supportive services like tutoring, employment readiness, college prep and more. The best part of our program is the mentorship that we offer throughout the youth's entire journey with our program.

If we are able to teach our youth emotional intelligence and healthy conflict resolution, they are able to take those skills into their homes and their schools. LA County will become a county with a culture of communal relationship building, shifting their focus from themselves to others. We will be a county where the youth will be known for taking action in their communities, for reducing crime rates, for encouraging others with a culture of emotional health and conflict resolution. They will be able to focus their energy on being agents of change in their communities rather than accepting the cycles of crime as the status quo.

For years our organization, Dream Live Hope Foundation has offered life skills classes (emotional intelligence, conflict resolution and financial literacy) and wrap around services (employment, housing, vital documents etc,.) for men coming home from incarceration. We have seen the power of the human spirit to overcome fear, shame, pride and insecurity when given the proper language and safe environment to explore these things. On the contrary, we have seen how the lack of emotional intelligence and conflict resolution skills becomes a very real barrier to rebuilding their lives with loved ones. Countless men and women that we have worked with have told us “if only I had known these skills when I was younger, I might not have ended up in prison.” We have had a 90% success rate with our adult program and have early indications that we will have similar numbers with our youth program. We measure success not as simply avoiding incarceration, but living a healthy and fulfilling life.