YOUTH DEVELOPMENT NETWORK

Youth Action Teams (YATs). These youth teams are the focus of a project to build the capacity of organizations to provide opportunities and skills for youth to reduce violence and gang involvement in Sacramento. 

This project targets youth (ages 12-24), with a focus on disenfranchised youth, racial and ethnic minorities, youth in foster care, pre-gang or gang affiliated youth, adjudicated youth, and others exhibiting risky behaviors such as truancy, academic failure, drug use, homeless, and poor social skills. These youth live in neighborhoods in the City of Sacramento that exhibit some of the highest violent crime rates and gang involvement in the County. The project builds the capacity of organizations and institutions to engage youth in meaningful ways in order to provide a solid foundation for youth and their adult partners to launch initiatives that are more relevant and effective because they are more "in-touch" with the unique characteristics of the target grouin partnership with adults, to address issues of youth violence prevention. Through training and coaching YATs will develop and implement neighborhood action violence prevention plans that include community change strategies, policy recommendations, and a communication awareness campaign. YDN and OYD will provide resources for the Sacramento Youth Commission to address neighborhood conditions and identify solutions to youth violence through active participation in YAT meetings, training in policy advocacy, and development of a citywide violence prevention policy agenda aligned with the needs and interests of disenfranchised youth. YDN will support YATs to advocate for the adoption of a citywide violence prevention policy agenda and a permanent mechanism within the City to address neighborhood violence prevention issues.