California Non-Profits Announce Grants For At-Risk Youth Programs

Sierra Health Foundation is funding the Positive Youth Justice Initiative. Alameda, San Diego, Solano and San Joaquin counties will get money and technical assistance for their at-risk youth programs. Assembly member Tom Ammiano supports the initiative. He says these counties understand what works.

“Intevention, prevention, support, understanding what it is to be a teenager, understanding how powerful poverty is and how people are pushed in,” says Ammiano.

Child development experts say children who grow up neglected or abused are much more likely to become adult inmates.

Mentoring, counseling, peer support and job training are among the programs the initiative will back.