Richmond Summer Youth Program

 My name is Adel Hazan and along with my co-worker Brian Day; we are trying to raise funds to help support the underserved youth that we work with in Richmond California.

 About our Agency:

CHAA provides mental health treatment services to adults at risk of homelessness, children, and adolescents, victims of domestic violence, students at the RYSE Center in Richmond and at schools in Alameda and Contra Costa County. CHAA is the treatment provider for West County’s Juvenile Drug Court and runs the only outpatient adolescent AOD treatment program in West County (OATS). CHAA has offered presentations, clinical findings, cultural competency training, and recommendations to public systems and decision-makers including the Richmond City Council, Oakland Unified School District, San Francisco Juvenile Probation, Contra Costa County Probation, and Contra Costa Health Services.

About our Program: 

Our focus is specifically with high school aged youth and we saw the need for a summer program that could provide healthy and positive activities for the youth we serve since there is a major shortage of resources and positive activities for youth in Richmond.  This past summer we created a program with some of our youth that included field trips, team building, assistance with getting into college, and recording music in an effort for the youth to use lyric writing as a coping mechanism as an alternative to substance use and support with anger management. 

The Results of our program:

The outcomes for our youth were astounding! Three of our youth were struggling to graduate high school going into the summer with little to no direction in their lives.  By the end of our program, these three youth had not only graduated from high school but were all registered and attending classes at their local college with full financial aid from our assistance during the summer!  Some of these youth have voluntarily continued to work with us through the fall because they recognize the importance and benefits of our services. Other youth in the program have also shown improvements in their interactions with peers, reduction of substance use and improvements with grades. 

How You Can Help!

Unfortunately, we are going into this summer with no funding for our program this year despite the success and appreciation from all youth involved.  As a result, we are asking for your help in keeping this program running.  We hope to not only continue what we started last year but to expand the number of youth we can serve, increase the quantity and quality of our field trips which could include a college tour of various schools in the bay area.  We also need support to provide better and more nutritious food to our youth since they spend several hours with us on a daily basis and only received snacks due to our lack of funds.  We chose to not put an end date on our fundraiser because ultimately; we would like to provide this type of programming to our youth year round and your support could make this possible.  Thanks in advance to any of you for your generous contributions and know that you are helping to enrich the lives of our incredible youth in Richmond!

Many of our former graduates that are eager to continue their work in the program and have asked if it would be possible to create a paid internship. Through this position former graduates could act as mentors to current group members and assist with group presentations. Your contributions can make the ideas of our clients become a reality.