Youth Peer Mental Health Ambassador Program

Income inequality

South LA Gateway Cities Long Beach South Bay West LA Central LA East LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Educate and empower young people about the importance of mental health care in an effort to build awareness and community connections. This project will increase mental health awareness through educational workshops, the arts (dance, music, drama, poetry, etc.), and other outreach and engagement activities that are culturally sensitive to this community.

The goal is to increase the capacity of the public mental health system and develop culturally relevant outreach and engagement projects specific to the communities served.

PRC proposes the Youth Peer Mental Health Ambassador Program. These two 14-week programs engage, empower, and educate young adults about the importance of mental health care, combat negative stereotypes, increase self-esteem, and prevent abuse. This program also educates on violence prevention and leadership development, promoting healthy relationships, emotional well-being, and long-term safety.
The curriculum is trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and rooted in the lived experiences of young people. Through art, storytelling, movement, mentoring, and peer advocacy, the Ambassador program fosters resilience and empowers youth to become agents of change in their communities.
Each cohort will run weekly 4-hour sessions, plus 2 additional homework hours weekly. T We expect to serve 20 youth, focusing on BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, foster, and system-impacted youth ages 17–25, including parenting teens, youth impacted by incarceration, and those experiencing housing insecurity.
Each session integrates expressive healing through music, art, writing, and food, creating safe and supportive spaces. Youth will present their final creative project to their peers, demonstrating what they have learned. These projects will be shared at the end-of-cohort events, which invite families, schools and community members. Youth will receive stipends for their participation.

We envision the project will approach violence through a multimodal process, addressing youth impacted by violence as a means to stop generational cycles of trauma while also providing youth the skills they need to reduce violence in their own communities and providing direct person-to-person outreach to increase awareness and build capacity of families and communities to help youth exposed to violence.