Alumni Members Network

What and Who:
A special forum for individuals from graduated, transitioning, and currently funded system of care communities, charged with working on developing “youth-guided” principles; where their population of focus is less than 9 years old. This virtual group will share resources, network, and build peer supports around their work.

This Group Is Brought Together Under This Belief:
The youth guided principle within the System of Care can be tailored to meet a variety of early childhood needs within an SOC. The goal of this work in many cases is to provide advocacy and consultation on behalf of young children, to help SOC communities to emerge into ones that listens to the voices of young children, is conscientious of developmental appropriateness, and focuses on meeting needs of children and their families at the individual, service, and policy levels.

The Focus:
This virtual body will focus on supporting its members in furthering the development and implementation of the SOC “Youth-Guided” principle, as it relates to early childhood settings. Currently work has been identified as being implemented trough the following domains: teen parents, family support, TA for service coordinators, early childhood community capacity development, TA for community partners, transition to middle childhood, and youth voice. This forum will be open to any individuals working on the implementation of work in these areas.

The early childhood youth engagement specialist is still in its “infancy” or “toddler” stage of development, and this is an exciting time as we work to fashion the specifics of this role for the future. Early childhood youth engagement specialists in SOCs will serve their communities well by utilizing approaches that build on community strengths, focus on needs, and capitalize on SAMHSA’s flexibility around the use of funds intended for this work. Throughout their work, early childhood youth engagement specialists empower the voice of young children by increasing the capacity of all of the adults in children’s lives that influence their care. As this field continues to advance, we are eager to watch the development of the youth engagement specialist role in early childhood settings progress exponentially in communities.