[The following final update was written by the organization and then sent to us for further sharing.]

The Arts for Healing and Justice Network (AHJN) is grateful for this grant, which has helped us to make great strides in sustaining the Youth Leadership Development (YLD) program and deepened our support for foster and systems-impacted youth — the primary issue area we selected for the LA2050 Grants Challenge. Through YLD, AHJN has made progress toward our overall goal: to co-empower Black and Brown system-impacted and foster youth in Los Angeles County to reclaim their narrative, dismantle oppressive systems in Los Angeles County and replace them with systems that support youth and community wellbeing.

Over the course of the grant period, AHJN served a record number of 168 systems-impacted and at-promise youth — more than triple the amount we had estimated at the beginning of the project. Youth were engaged through at least one of our three YLD components: the Our True Colors (OTC) weekly peer support group for previously incarcerated youth reentering their communities, and two Fellowship opportunities (our Leadership & Liberation Fellowship, and our Arts Fellowship) for youth who are system-impacted or at-promise. The following is a breakdown of youth participation per program:

• 168 system-impacted youth participated in OTC.

• Of the 168 OTC participants, 100% received gift card incentives to remove barriers they were facing and provide added support.

• 10 system-impacted and at-promise youth partook in the Leadership & Liberation Fellowship.

• 12 system-impacted and at-promise youth joined the Arts Fellowship.

We are also pleased to report that AHJN has indirectly impacted close to 120 people through YLD, including teaching artists, movement building partners, and family members. This included people reached through our Network-Wide Training, which took place in June 2024. At the training, 32 teaching artists learned from AHJN staff, built relationships, engaged in artistic production, and shared best practices to better serve youth. Additionally, we engaged approximately 80 community members through events and calls to action such our Friends and Family Day, Welcome Home gathering, and LA County Board of Supervisor mobilizations. While we intended to reach more people, much of our resources and capacity shifted to serving the high number of youth participants we welcomed through OTC.

YLD has had a valuable impact on the youth we serve, and we made significant progress in meeting our objectives. Of youth surveyed, 89% reported improved self-awareness, sense of belonging and community connection, and a deeper understanding and application of healing centered movement building principles. Of the nine Leadership & Liberation Fellowship participants surveyed, 100% reported feeling supported and expressed a desire to stay involved in the Fellowship. One youth wrote, “Appreciate all the hard work you guys are doing. Keep the Fellowship running. It can help and change people’s lives.” Overall, youth participants indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied with our programming.

In response to the overwhelming success of our programming and young peoples’ desires to continue engaging with AHJN, we created a new YLD track this year: Capstone Projects. These three-month-long culminating art projects are designed to encourage Fellowship alumni to think critically, solve challenging problems, and develop skills such as communication, public speaking, research skills, media literacy, teamwork, planning, self-sufficiency, and goal setting. We launched the first cohort of 11 YLD participants in March 2024. Seven participants completed their Capstone Projects by the first week of August 2024.

AHJN has made some additional adjustments to our YLD programming over the past year. While the essence of our program remained the same, we changed the name of the Youth Resiliency & Movement Building Fellowship to the Leadership & Liberation Fellowship to better reflect our movement-building goals. Fellowship youth now engage in mentorship, the Decolonization Workgroup, Los Angeles Youth Uprising Coalition (LAYUP) meetings, and trainings.

In the past year, Leadership & Liberation Fellows met with the director of the Department of Youth Development (DYD), co-organized a youth summit, and participated in a California Board of State and Community Corrections meeting that led to declaring Los Padrinos and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Halls unsuitable for youth housing. On August 5, 2024, a Leadership & Liberation Fellow, along with young people from LAYUP, participated in an invitation-only DYD roundtable discussion with LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. The conversation was centered around effective strategies for preventing youth arrests.

Kevin, a young person our team met while at Horace Mann Juvenile Day Reporting Center, is a prime example of the transformative impact that YLD can have on youth. While at Horace Mann, Kevin was engaged in programming with AHJN member Street Poets Inc. He agreed to participate in a listening session focused on developing a research framework for LA County’s DYD with our Director of Impact Research. That interaction led Kevin to join OTC and participate in a paid Arts Fellowship with Street Poets. In addition, Kevin has helped us co design our community event The Good Fight Fest. He was a panelist in our Network-Wide Training. And he participated in LAYUP’s Lobby Day, where he and other youth met with all five County Board of Supervisors offices to share youth stories and advocate for diversion, safe healing centers, and decarceration. Kevin continues to engage with AHJN and has become a leader within the space. In addition to actively participating in the Leadership & Liberation Fellowship, he has also joined our Transformative Junk project, through which teaching artists and youth reclaim discarded materials to create a unique art installation that will be auctioned off to members of the community. By joining YLD, Kevin has built strong relationships with staff and peers, using his art as a tool to help advocate for other youth.

The youth we serve are important partners in developing our evaluation process, which we have found helps to improve youth engagement and wellbeing. AHJN collaborates with our youth-led workgroup to create survey metrics to capture outcomes focused on youth experiences. Youth are asked to take a retrospective survey at the end of a session to compare data to track whether we have achieved our desired youth outcomes. In order to improve our evaluation systems, we have begun a critical evaluation design framework process to identify how we can best measure our impact, goals, and progress in a way that reflects the values and priorities of AHJN, our network members, and the youth we serve. We are also working to launch a new CRM software in 2025 that will help us track data more effectively.

Capstone Project participant Paru presenting their final zine project about justice, food, and youth incarceration.

We have learned a lot over the grant period. It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations of the work and lose sight of long-term vision and strategy for AHJN. Thanks to our incredible staff and increased capacity among our team, we learned the importance of carving out time to collectively learn, share, and dream for the future of YLD and AHJN as a whole. For example, these meetings inspired us rename our program Leadership & Liberation Fellowship in line with our long-term advocacy and systems-change vision. We have also learned the value of bringing outside consultants and experts familiar with our communities and the work we do, to help guide our various strategies and are excited about continuing to implement these in the years ahead.

As an organization working to make Los Angeles County the best place to create, we are grateful to have been given the opportunity to further serve Angelenos through this grant. Being an LA2050 winner has elevated AHJN’s reputation in the field and opened many doors. Over the past year, we received funding from new partners including the Getty Foundation, Unlikely Collaborators Foundation, and the Reissa Foundation. Additionally, AHJN is honored to be in the company of so many important changemakers in our region. During LA2050’s Impact Network Event, we were able to connect with Better Youth and are exploring a potential partnership.

YLD Alumnus Kevin participating in Lobby Day at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration

While there were no surprising or new partnerships in relation to YLD specifically, our organization did gain new partners, as we expanded our network from 15 to 23 members. Our newest members include: ClayDD, Dance and Dialogue, Fostering Dreams Project, Green Arrow Co-Lab, Plus Me Project, Project Knucklehead, Returning Home, and Upward Together. Outside of our members, we are also piloting an apprenticeship with Carpenter Training Partners (CTP) to get youth certified in this field and connect them with union jobs.

In the upcoming year, we will continue to deliver our YLD programming, including OTC, the Arts Fellowship, the Leadership & Liberation Fellowship, and our Capstone Projects. In regard to financial sustainability, AHJN works with external consultants to assist in fund development and grant award applications. We are also continuing to work with our board, members, and staff to brainstorm ways to diversify our funding streams. Given the success of YLD over the past year and the continuous growth of AHJN, we are poised to broaden and deepen our impact in the future.

Leadership & Liberation Fellowship Culmination at Plus Me Project, February 2024.