New Mexico Forum for Youth in Community

The New Mexico children Youth and families Youth alliance (nmya) engaged a statewide cohort of Youth, ages 14-24, on a Youth advisory council which informs their state legislators and The administration on issues impacting Youth in their communities. During 2014, The nmya engaged over 1,200 Youth in leadership development, social justice and civic education through 4 statewide gatherings held over The year. These gatherings include: 1) celebrating children and Youth legislative day, where 250 Youth practiced civic agency by engaging their legislators on critical issues such as racial justice, high-stakes testing in schools, and adolescent behavioral health resources; and 2)organizing a Youth engagement 3-day conference, which brought 350 Youth from across The state together to develop leadership skills and to identify and develop youth-drive, policy-centered solutions for The top 10 issues facing Youth in New Mexico.

During 2014, The New Mexico department of health funded two initiatives, The substance abuse and mental health services administration (samhsa) Youth suicide prevention and natural helpers initiative, and The Youth adolescent health action council (yahac). The samsha initiative was comprised of ten Youth suicide prevention peer-to-peer mini grant recipients which engaged a total of 126 peer educators, age 12-18, on topics related to Youth suicide prevention which included; teen dating violence, self-care, mental health awareness, health care, media literacy, positive coping skills, peer education, healthy relationships and positive Youth development. They implemented a total of 26 Community impact projects across New Mexico directly impacting a total of 613 adults and 1,329 young people. The yahac is a statewide Youth advisory council comprised of 12 young people which advised The selection of 10 Youth health Community impact projects. Projects were implemented in 9 different areas of The state and impacted a total of 2,246 Youth and 185 adults.

During fiscal year 2014, 18 public allies served with 16 non-profit organizations in albuquerque, santa fe, and las cruces where they completed their 2014-2015 ten-month americorps service; service involved them attending professional development trainings and project based work to implement, improve, expand non-profit programs and initiatives. During The 14-15 program year, we had to release 2 allies from our program due to poor performance. We also hired 1 additional ally in june 2015 to fill The last slot of The 14-15 program year, as we were unable to fill this slot at program start. Allies served a combined total of 30,600+ hours to their respective organizations and The communities they serve. 5 of our graduating allies have been offered full-time positions at The organizations they served in, while many of The others have plans to apply for similar work in The non-profit/social sector or are pursuing their next steps to higher education.