Here are some EBGTZ key pointers and great examples of organizations nationwide already doing great work.
Do:
- Host collaborative events. Organizations from both Alameda and Contra Costa counties should be consistently working together to run events.
- Develop youth-focused events where trusted adults play a background role.
Do Not:
- Don’t host solely informational, educational, or pilot testing events
Organizations facilitating in-person/virtual adult-youth events and workshops:
- Black Youth Development Book: BYD Book helps families and caregivers of Black youth in Oakland find community-led programs that educate and nurture children from preschool through young adulthood.
- These programs, from 60 organizations, range from literacy to mentorship, health and wellness, STEM, arts, African-centered curriculum, college support, career prep, and much more. Most are free, some are low-cost, and some are opportunities for paid work experience.
East Bay Organizations with youth-focused sexual health programming and services:
- Roots Community Health
- Oakland LGBTQ+ Community Center
- HEPPAC
- AIDS Healthcare Foundation
- Asian Health Services
- Dream Youth Clinic
- Ryse Youth Center
- Rainbow Community Center
- Advocates for Youth
- Young Women’s Freedom Center
- Advocates for Youth Engaging Young Parents Toolkit:
- Society’s framing of teen pregnancy as a “problem that must be solved” has led to widespread stigma of young people who do become pregnant and parent children. As a result, young parents face serious challenges to education, stability, and achieving their life goals—problems caused not by parenting itself but by the failure of policies, systems and attitudes in our country to support young families. Further, when it comes to solutions, young parents are often excluded from the decision-making table, both by structural and cultural forces, ranging from lack of childcare to the pervasive stigmas associated with young parenthood.
- “A Toolkit for Youth-Serving Organizations and Agencies” is designed to help youth-serving institutions authentically engage young parents as partners and leaders in their organization’s efforts to serve young families. The toolkit provides best practices, tips, and resources to create a Young Parent Leadership Council (YPLC) comprised of eight to ten young parent-leaders who can offer insights into the barriers and opportunities young parents face, partner with adult staff to advocate for improvements to programs, policies, and systems to better meet the needs of young parents, their families and communities, and help build pathways of economic opportunity for YPLC members and other young parents in the community.
Content and collateral from past EBGTZ youth-led projects:
- RYSE mural
- Youth Testing Day event
- S.M.X.Y event