Youth to Youth is a positive peer prevention programme, which focuses on four areas within a comprehensive approach:
In Youth to Youth, the meetings, and various activities are facilitated and organized by the youth.
Teens are capable leaders who can be powerful and positive influences in encouraging their peers to make sound choices. They are willing and able to contribute useful, creative ideas and an abundance of energy, and to take responsibility for the prevention programmes that affect their peers.
The programme encourages personal growth, presents techniques that teens can use to change their own environments, and provides alternatives to harmful behaviours.
Research on adolescent development confirms that when adolescents feel safe and secure, loved, and accepted, and have a sense of purpose and meaning in life they are less likely to engage in unhealthy misguided behviours; this is the premise of the Youth-to-Youth model.
Our original youth-driven, adult-guided programming has set the standard for youth development and prevention programming across the country and around the world.
Youth to Youth strives through its programming, youth-centered philosophy, and caring adults to insure that: