NEXT is unlike any youth training you’ve ever seen. We’re re-defining how youth leadership and youth empowerment are used to drive community change. Using the “Strategic Prevention Framework” (SPF) developed by the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), NEXT gives the leaders of tomorrow the tools they need to strategically and effectively re-shape their communities.
All communities desire to be safe, happy, and healthy places for people to live, work, and play. However, some communities experience environmental factors that negatively impact their quality of life. We believe that youth are the key to mobilizing communities. By empowering them to advocate for policies that can reduce the negative effects of environmental influences, it can ultimately create better outcomes for everyone.
Most training programs only try to develop skills at the individual level. NEXT takes it a step further by supplementing training on individual leadership and empowerment with group skills. Teams learn the importance of how to effectively engage in community assessment, building group capacity, project planning, implementation, and evaluation. But it doesn’t stop there, the youth take the skills they’ve learned beyond the classroom. By actually implementing projects in the community, they create real outcomes and change!
