Fostering Youth Development

What is DO YOU?

• DO YOU: Building Youth Resilience Through Creative Expression is a multifaceted, primary prevention campaign created by the Action Alliance.
• The DO YOU campaign addresses youth violence, dating and sexual violence, sexual harassment, and bullying by confronting its root causes and enhancing protective factors (also referred to as building resilience) to promote positive development and healthy relationships for age 13-16 years old. The campaign was developed to be consistent with best practices in primary prevention and creative expression in order to prevent violence before it starts.
• The campaign consists of two components: (1) DO YOU is a 10-session curriculum that combines group discussions and activities with arts-based expression through their own zine. (2) DO SOMETHING is the next phase of the project, where young people design and execute a community-based project for wider impact of the program.

Get Campaign Materials

• It’s important to us that facilitators have robust training and on-going support from the Action Alliance, therefore it is required to become DO YOU certified before receiving the materials.
• Once trained, you will receive the Facilitator’s Guide (which contains the 10-session UnCurriculum and facilitator resources), 20 blank zines, DO YOU evaluation tools, and several additional online tools and resources.
• At this 2-day training, Action Alliance staff and/or training faculty will introduce the theory and roots of the program, practice several of the activities, and let participants begin work on their own zine!

Supporting Materials and Resources

• Download the two-page overview: DO YOU-Building Youth Resilience Through Creative Expression
• Download the document, “Is DO YOU Evidence Based“
• The Action Alliance has developed an online toolkit to assist facilitators in the DO SOMETHING component of the campaign. Here you will find youth organizing and planning models for community-level prevention strategies, such as DO SOMETHING, and additional tools and strategies to support evaluation of DO YOU. Access this toolkit at https://www.doyoutools.org/do-something.

 

The Honeycomb Retreat

The Honeycomb Retreat is a free arts and creative expression-based retreat for young advocates, activists, & movement builders ages 18-24 in Virginia.

The first Honeycomb Retreat was held from July 22-26, 2019 in Richmond, Virginia. Fellows traveled from across the state to participate, bringing a diverse set of experience and expertise with them. To learn more about the vision the Honeycomb Fellows developed and program evaluation results, please see The Honeycomb Report.

The 2021 Honeycomb Retreat met virtually over consecutive weekends in summer 2021. Learn more here.

Youth Action Council

The Youth Action Council is a space where people ages 18 – 24 build their advocacy, organizing and activist skills and are provided leadership opportunities that may include building prevention curriculums, facilitating trainings, consulting with local programs who want to engage youth in their community, or working with our policy team on Legislative Advocacy Day. The goal is to create leadership opportunities within the Action Alliance, the larger coalition, and membership.

We want to be thoughtful and intentional about the ways in which the Youth Action Council are a part of and have power in decision-making! Youth Organizing is an effective strategy for youth resiliency and social change, and this strategy has been underutilized in our field and movement. The Action Alliance hopes that building this leadership body will also allow us to provide technical assistance, training, and resources to our members on building their own youth leadership programs or take their youth leadership to the next level! The Action Alliance’s Youth Action Council and youth leadership structures could also provide new and exciting opportunities for youth who have worked with local programs and create space for youth organizers to bring back the skills and frameworks they have learned with the Action Alliance to their local programs and communities.

In 2021, the Youth Action Council created the Youth Are Curriculum. Created for and by youth, this curriculum aims to support young people in seeing themselves as leaders and change makers in their community and encourages adult facilitators, preventionists, and advocates to value the strengths, knowledge, and creativity young people bring to movement to end violence. This is a 4-part curriculum intended for middle and high school students. It can be facilitated by adult allies and/or peer facilitators.