Capital City Youth Development Corporation

I would use this funding for two purposes. First, to expand our programming to include Nonviolent Communication Training, Mental Health First Aid Training for Youth, the Law and You training and to offer an expanded community service component. Why these particular trainings? We've partnered with other groups to offer each of these trainings at least annually and the demand FAR EXCEEDS our capacity. 

• Nonviolent Communication helps young people and adults to "communicate effectively". This skill, once mastered will help a person for a lifetime. 
• With minority youth being afraid of, and unwilling to connect with law enforcement, we need the 'Law in Your Community' training more than ever. We've partnered with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) to offer this training annually. It bring law enforcement officers and youth together, providing live scenarios and education about how to interact with police and what you should do if you are ever stopped by law enforcement. This is a powerful training which literally TRANSFORMS how youth, especially minority, view police.  
• Mental Health First Aid is more CRUCIAL now, than ever before and will reduce both crime and suicide rates for youth.
• Service is just that! Giving back more often.

I was raised by a single parent who worked hard to take care of me. Being alone a lot gave me lots of time and opportunity to make "all of the wrong choices". Thankfully, I wasn't that kid. I was also wise enough to figure out early what I DIDN'T want my life to be. 

I was fortunate to have people who worked to ensure that I remained focused and had a roadmap that I could follow in order to rise above my situation. Since 2003, CCYDC has reached back and helped other youth and families to realize their fullest potential. We've provided mentoring, coaching, college success, training, Teens and the Law and over the past year tons of education about community policing and how to stay safe if  you're pulled over by law enforcement.  

I consider myself fortunate because I had positive adult role models in my life that wanted the best for me. I remember that I felt able to accomplish anything, because I know they were there to support me. Many children don't feel this way and a lot of adults done know how to share their feelings. That's where we come in, to model and coach!

I never set out to change the world, I set out to make a difference in my community by supporting youth, period. All of my work over the past 30 years has been to ensure that youth know that they are valued, can achieve their wildest dreams-if they are willing to work for it, and that they need to understand that in order to make it, we all have a role to play. Our children are still dying, they are still making poor choices that greatly impact their futures, they are still fearful of their futures. While we have made great strides over the past 10 years of so, the last 4 have nearly taken us back to the starting point. "I want young people to believe that they can have the futures they envision for themselves. I want them to have hope for the future again." Your funding will help us to continue providing critical life skills training, nonviolent communication courses, leadership development and  provide academic supports.

We all have a change to change the course of a person's life if we are truly committed to this work. CCYDC is! We do this through training, mentoring and coaching. 

Prior to the pandemic, we began a community wide initiative dedicated to launching the Pathways to Community Healing. Our goal was to ensure that the community, especially youth, were able to recognize the signs of a mental health crisis, know how to respond and where to find resources. The launch, held at a local library on a Friday evening was phenomenal! We had numerous community member ready to serve as Community Navigators, which required more detailed training and certification. While another group was poised to learn all that they could so that they could be prepared to help. 

See the link: https://youtu.be/zJ7xcgi0W48

Sadly, the week prior to our first set of community trainings, they announced the need to shut down the city due to COVID. While this delayed our work somewhat, and significantly reduced the number of community members served, we persevered. We launched a series of truncated Zoom webinars to provide an overview of mental health first aide and partnered with a local university and other partners to expand our reach when we are permitted to meet in person. We want to provide this critical resource to all of our community members, regardless of their ability to pay.

CCYDC training and conferences have provided vital information to more than  3600 youth and 500 families since it's inception. Through our mentoring, training, community service and success coaching, young people on the southside of Tallahassee are realizing their dreams to attend college of trade school. Those who successfully complete our program are eligible to receive scholarships through a foundation that our family created in 2019, called the DeBoles-Johnson Foundation https://djfoundationinc.org/. Everything that we do at CCYDC is laser focused on helping youth to be the best version of themselves. 

We will continue these efforts, while also enhancing these trainings with additional workshops, which are mentioned above. We've already seen the positive effects of the NVC training on a pilot group at our local high school. They number of negative encounters were significantly reduced. Imagine what could happen if this model was readily available to entire schools instead of a small subset of 18 students. The impact has the potential to be mind-blowing!

We are effective because of our consistency, our culturally sensitive curriculum and trainers who reflective of the community being served. We reside in the area where the children have the most need.