From: Youth Empowered Solutions (YES!)
Purpose: Apply the YES! Youth Empowerment Model to increase Wake County’s overall capacity: to youth themselves to actively engage them in understanding and improving health indicators; to adults to increase their skills, comfort level, and success in actively partnering with youth; to agencies to improve inter-communication, connectedness, and collaborations around youth-focused initiatives; and to the community to raise expectations, improve opinions, and share outcomes about youth participation and leadership.
How:
1. Train a team of high school students to act on the NC IOM Adolescent Health Task Force recommendations in Wake County.
2. Complete an assessment of Wake County agency needs for youth empowerment and advocacy.
3. Incorporate findings into the development and dissemination of resources, media, and training materials on youth empowerment and advocacy.
Outcome:
1. A trained, knowledgeable high school-aged youth staff team that implements an advocacy action plan for positive change.
2. Earned media as a result of the action plan.
3. Environmental policy changes in specific settings.
4. Expanded capacity of YES to promote youth empowerment in Wake County.
5. Adults and agencies that have implemented change.
6. Positive shift in Wake County in the perception of young people as effective leaders for change and interconnectedness of other youth development organizations.
Cost/Term: $359,150 over three years.