Youth Programs

CHAA is committed to providing opportunities for youth development in a safe, supportive, and culturally sensitive environment. Our programs are designed to promote healthy lifestyles, positive choices, and build healthy, safe communities.

CHAA’s youth programs include:

BEATZ

BEATZ BEATZ is a program that seeks to promote youth leadership and development through music, and is housed in the STEP AHEAD building along with SEAYL. With instruction from DJ professionals, students devise, lead, and execute projects promoting community wellness. The BEATZ team recently wrote, produced, and recorded an original album speaking out against violence, and is currently providing DJ training on site at the RYSE Center in Richmond.

Healthier Richmond’s Youth Leadership

Youth Leadership for a Healthier Richmond’s mission is to create a healthy and happy community for all. The program is for diverse youth that promotes leadership and community empowerment to make positive change in Richmond. This year, we are working on shaping marijuana policy at the state and local level. The project will be run out of Richmond High School’s Health Academy as an after school health equity club. Youth interns will develop skills to become effective agents of change for their community, advocating for more resources in Richmond for youth development and prevention programs, analyzing the issues and seeing how tax dollars from marijuana dispensaries can help support this opportunity, as well as bringing youth voices to helping shape the likely marijuana legalization ballot measure in California in November 2016.

Healthy Richmond

http://www.healthyrichmond.net

Healthy Richmond is one of 14 community efforts in the state selected by The California Endowment to improve health systems and address physical, social, and economic issues in order to support healthy behaviors. The 10-year project encourages Richmond residents to accomplish 10 outcomes that address health care, prevention, violence, youth development, the community environment, health gaps for men and boys of color and more. Richmond was selected to participate for its potential to develop into a community that can be modeled, replicated, and inspire policy changes to create a healthy environment for all Californians.

CHAA was selected to participate on the pre-planning, planning and transition teams for this effort, and is currently a member of the Healthy Richmond Steering Community.

RYSE Center

http://www.rysecenter.org

RYSE Center CHAA is the Health and Wellness anchor at RYSE, a collaborative in Richmond providing programming and leadership opportunities for youth aged 14-24. In addition to providing traditional counseling services, CHAA offers personalized wellness plans, which all RYSE members are encouraged to complete. Wellness plans provide youths the opportunity to analyze various areas of their lives and pick an area for improvement, such as fitness, school, sexual health, career plans, relationships, and academic progress, among others.

South East Asian Young Leaders (SEAYL)

http://seaylspace.ning.com/

SEAYL, or South East Asian Young Leaders, is a program for youth that promotes leadership, community improvement, and the sharing of cultural practices. SEAYL was formed in October 2003 after the tragic murder of Chan Boonkeut in an effort to address community violence in Richmond and the greater West Contra Costa area. Located in the STEP AHEAD building, SEAYL aims to keep youth off the streets, promote the youth voice, and develop valuable life skills.

Substance Abuse Treatment and Empowering Youth (SATAEY)

Program Description:

Community Health for Asian Americans (CHAA) will provide early intervention outpatient Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) treatment program that targets adolescents age 18 and under with substance abuse issues that affect major areas of functioning. Moreover, SATAEY emphasizes the association of AOD abuse and multicultural issues, especially to recent immigrants and other API youth. The services will be provided in schools and at the clinic in order to promote a healthy community and reduce the harmful effects associated with alcohol and drug use.

CHAA–SATAEY emphasizes the responsiveness of the program to provide timely intervention for the youngsters and their families to maintain or restore their optimal functioning in the community. SATAEY services include: AOD screening and evaluation, psycho-education, individual and group and family counseling, crisis intervention, healthy alternatives activities, and case management.

Program Goals:

The goal of the program is to reduce substance abuse significantly among youth and to help them preserve or restore major areas of their functioning through therapeutic interventions, psycho-education and case management. The goals of the treatment services are:

To provide a continuum of care that is client-centered, culturally competent and youth-specific;
To increase the number of youth needing treatment that are identified and once identified, to increase the number that receive treatment; and
To provide comprehensive care coordination for youth to ensure increased length of stay in a continuum of services that supports recovery and promotes resiliency.

Referral Criteria:

Who We Serve: SATAEY serves youth and adolescents, ages 12 to 18, residing in Alameda County.
Coordination of Services: SATAEY services are provided by CHAA’s AOD Specialist and AOD Counselor. When SATAEY services are not appropriate, the Specialist and Counselor will work in partnership with parents, school staff, and other service providers to identify and refer youth and their family to appropriate organizations and community resources, including CHAA’s EPSD, CalWORKs, and Adult Mental Health Services.