Our Programs
How we work
Our Mission: Healthy Youth CAN strives to increase community strengths through prevention and intervention strategies that support Central Area youth in making healthy life choices.
Our program’s focus is to increase healthy youth development in Seattle’s Central Area; building strengths in families, schools, and neighborhoods. HYCAN is facilitated by a coalition of community-based organizations, treatment providers, law enforcement, business, youth, and faith-based entities.
Funding is allocated for school and community-based Prevention-Intervention Services in Central Seattle, including Garfield High School, Seattle World School, Meany and Washington Middle Schools, and Madrona and Bailey Gatzert Elementary schools. Efforts are also directed toward other youth residing in our geographic target area.
What We Do
EVIDENCE-BASED & INNOVATIVE PREVENTION PROGRAMS
HYCAN facilitates evidence-based and innovative programs that are designed to reduce our priority risk factors and increase protections, including positive youth empowerment, family and community bonding, refusal skills, and positive activities that promote healthy youth development.
Youth participants include middle and high school; and occasionally, elementary school-aged students. Families are encouraged to attend trainings that focus on the latest in youth drug use trends, updated research and impacts to adolescent brain development; as well as providing parent/guardian tips and skills for raising healthy youth.
Each year, HYCAN selects relevant evidence-based programs that specifically address our needs:
Innovative Youth Engagement Activities
Public Art Murals
HYCAN believes in the transformative power of art and its ability to bring people together. Our youth are at the heart of these incredible murals, pouring their creativity and passion into every brushstroke. Here's why these murals are so special:
🎨 Fostering Community Bonding: Through the creation of these murals, our youth actively engage with their communities, building bridges and forging connections. These vibrant artworks become a shared expression of identity, pride, and unity. Let's celebrate the power of art to strengthen our bonds! 🤝🌈
💪 Empowering Youth: These murals serve as a platform for positive youth empowerment. Our talented artists channel their creativity and talent, gaining confidence and a sense of accomplishment. They realize the impact they can make through their art, inspiring others and becoming advocates for positive change. 🌟🎭
🏙️ Neighborhood Restoration: Our murals breathe life into the neighborhoods of Central Seattle, rejuvenating spaces and instilling a sense of pride and ownership. They transform blank walls into vibrant canvases that tell stories, reflect culture, and inspire hope. Together, we can restore and revitalize our communities! 🌆💙
Purple Reign
An after-school Hip Hop dance group, led by a professional Hip-Hop dance teaching artist, participants learn foundation styles of Hip-Hop dance, including house, street, and funk. Participants perform at community events and showcases, promoting positive recognition and empowerment, dance skills, teamwork, and community contribution.
Prevention Clubs and Programs
Youth engagement activities with a prevention focus to build leadership, increase resilience, substance misuse resistance, and refusal skills. Participants have opportunities to attend youth conferences and events, including the Spring Youth Forum, Prevention Summit, and the Game of Life.
RISK ASSESSMENT
Central Area priority risk factors are determined through youth and community surveys and stakeholder and community input. HYCAN uses this information to identify and facilitate strategies to reduce risk and increase protective factors:
Individual Risk Factors include:
Intentions to Use
Academic Failure
Perceived Risk of Drug Use
Friends’ Use of Drugs
Favorable Attitudes Towards Drug Use
Community Risk Factors:
Perceived Availability of Drugs
Community Laws and Norms Favorable to Drug Use
Low Community Attachment
Family Risk Factors:
Poor Family Management
Favorable Attitudes Towards Drug Use
Protective Factors include:
Opportunities for Prosocial Involvement in the School
Opportunities for Prosocial Involvement in the Community
Provide Opportunities for Positive Youth Recognition
Community Activities Campaigns
Champions Together Billboards
In Central Seattle, we believe in the power of visual communication to spark conversations, raise awareness, and foster a sense of unity. Our billboards serve as powerful tools to address substance misuse head-on while spreading positive drug-free prevention messages. Here's why they matter:
👀 Raising Awareness: Our billboards catch your attention, drawing you in with compelling visuals done by our Central Seattle Youth and thought-provoking messages. By shining a spotlight on substance misuse, we're opening up a dialogue and ensuring that these important issues are not overlooked. Let's raise awareness and create a community that cares! 🚨💡
🤝 Strengthening Community Bonding: As these billboards grace our neighborhood, they bring us closer together. They serve as a common thread, igniting conversations among community members, and encouraging us to support one another. Together, we can build a network of strength and resilience! 🌟🤗
💡 Shifting Perceptions: Our billboards challenge the prevailing perceptions around substance misuse. By showcasing positive drug-free prevention messages, we are redefining the narrative and promoting a healthier, safer community. Let's inspire change and empower each other to make better choices! 💪💚
Every billboard represents our collective commitment to creating a community that cares, supports, and protects its members, the Champions Together Billboard Competition gives our Central Area Youth a chance to showcase their artwork and think about what keeps them healthy. It's a visual reminder that we are in this together, and that change begins with us.
Champions Together Billboard Competition Rules and Prompt
Our Champions Together Billboard competition has found it’s winners! The competition was open to youth ages: 5-19 who live, work, attend school or have family roots in Central Seattle. We asked for submissions based around these prompts:
• What is helping you stay healthy and strong during the pandemic?
• What are you looking forward to when it is over?
If you are in the Seattle area be on the lookout for the winners in the wild!
Displayed in the Central Seattle community, billboards serve as a strategy to increase community bonding and change the perception of risk by raising awareness of substance misuse as well as promote positive drug-free prevention messages.
Public Awareness for Families
Our Annual Prom Tips that head out to Garfield High School Families
Prevention awareness and information provided to Central Seattle Families to increase awareness and encourage communication.
Social Media Posts
Safety Messages
Safety/ Prevention message to Garfield High School senior families, Spring 2021.
Policy Change to Reduce Youth ATOD Use and Access
Discussions around ATOD issues and related policies with Central Area community members and stakeholders. Hold presentations, meetings, and training related to ATOD issues such as underage access, the prevalence of illegal drug use and distribution, and other needed strategies. Focus on families with incoming 6th graders and immigrant families.
Key Partners
King County’s Department of Health and Human Services, Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Program, as the CPWI Grant Monitor, and works closely with HYCAN to assure program fidelity and compliance.
Puget Sound Educational Services District provides Prevention-Intervention staff to support students in Central Seattle Schools.
Washington State Health Care Authority’s (HCA) /Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery (DBHR) is HYCAN’s funder, under the Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative (CPWI). CPWI is a partnership of state agencies, counties, schools, and local prevention coalitions supporting communities in preventing alcohol and other drug abuse and its negative consequences. Grant funding is allocated for school and community--based Prevention and Intervention
Healthy Youth CAN also partners with organizations that invest in young people and build community, such as Therapeutic Health Services’ (THS) Youth and Family Services, Seattle Parks and Recreation Teen Programs and Center for Multicultural Health. HYCAN collaborates with King County, the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods and Seattle Police Department and other community-based organizations such as the East Precinct Advisory Council, Squire Park Community Council, Hopscotch CD, National Night out Against Crime and the Central Area Neighborhood District Council.
The Central Seattle community, an inner-city urban area located across several neighborhoods, is home to 19,667 citizens and is historically one of the most racially, economically, and ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Seattle.
However, in the last 15 years, the Central Area has experienced significant gentrification with inflated housing costs and displacement of long-term residents, mostly people of color. These conditions have decreased community attachment and increased criminal activity, including gun violence, substance abuse and youth violence.
HYCAN actively collaborates with community partners and initiatives to increase community bonding and inclusivity. Through increasing safety and quality of life for all citizens, HYCAN actively works to strengthen youth, schools, families, and neighborhoods.
Central Area priority risk factors are determined through youth and community surveys and stakeholder input. HYCAN uses this information to identify and facilitate these strategies to increase protective factors:
Engaging community to support youth;
Prosocial youth and civic engagement and empowerment;
Recognizing youth for positive contribution;
Facilitating school drug education, prevention, and intervention practices
HYCAN and our partners participate in a series of activities throughout the year including:
Events:
Key Leader Dinner
Partnering with the East Precinct Advisory Council (EastPAC), HYCAN sponsors a dinner meeting where the Central Seattle community is invited to enjoy a dinner catered by a Central Area business and hear about our programs and efforts to collaboratively increase life quality in our neighborhoods.
Town Hall Forum
A community meeting addressing the results of the Healthy Youth Survey, along with the latest research on examples of youth substance misuse and abuse. Co-facilitated by the University of Washington School of Social Work and the Communities that Care program.
Conferences and Capacity Building
The Washington State Prevention Summit
provides an enriching and culturally competent training and networking opportunity for youth, volunteers, and professionals across the state who are working toward the prevention of substance abuse, violence, and other destructive behaviors as well as integrating such prevention efforts with primary health care.
A state-wide forum to recognize and reward youth prevention teams that have implemented a successful prevention project within their communities. Showcasing prevention projects that were developed by youth leaders, participants give presentations that provide other youth opportunities to learn from one another and share success stories to encourage program capacity building and sustainability.
Summer Coalition Leadership Institute
The Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery (DBHR) facilitates a summer gathering of CPWI Prevention professionals and volunteers focusing on the latest research, statewide program updates, and best practices.
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA)
A four-day conference packed with multiple adult and youth-oriented opportunities to learn the latest strategies to fight substance abuse and hear from nationally-known experts and policymakers with a full day dedicated to Capitol Hill events. The Forum is held in the Washington, DC area every year, normally the first week of February, and brings together more than 2,700 participants representing community anti-drug coalitions, government leaders, youth, addiction treatment professionals, researchers, educators, law enforcement professionals, youth and faith-based leaders.
Game of Life
Teens from around the region gather for a facilitated discussion of relevant issues, including distracted and impaired driving, social media, respect, leadership, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide prevention.