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Youth Initiatives

Community Health Youth Initiatives (CHYI) offer life skills for healthy living and working. Programs also provide training and support for people working with youth.

CHYI works with partners to improve the health of the community. With a commitment to racial justice and health equity, programs focus on leadership development, social justice and civic engagement. 

Community Based Programs

Career Pathways Program

Surgeons working with DaVinci robotThe Career Pathways Program is designed for teens and young adults who are interested in learning about health careers and opportunities. Through this structured program participants are provided with mentorship, job shadowing, and other training and career exposure from a variety of departments at CHA in both clinical and non-clinical settings. 

Opportunities include paid internships and early access to workforce development skills, education and more to increase future career access and attainment.

This program is designed to enhance participants' understanding and competencies that address:

  • Awareness of diverse career pathways within healthcare settings

  • Strengthening professional and personal networks

  • Acquisition of relevant workplace skills through hands-on experience

  • Development of confidence in key aspects of career growth and advancement

In addition to the Career Pathways Program led by Cambridge Health Alliance, we also serve as a worksite through partnerships with local municipalities’ summer jobs initiatives, YouthWorks, and other youth workforce development programs. 

PhotoVoice

The Massachusetts Photovoice Project (MPP) is a prevention initiative that uses a youth-centered approach to engage local youth in using the photovoice method to explore underage gambling and related public health issues in their community. Photovoice is a participatory approach to storytelling and documenting environmental community conditions using photography. Youth use their learning from the photovoice process to identify a problem in their community, learn about the root causes of this problem, and identify a set of actions that can be taken to contribute as solutions to the identified problem. Through this process, participating youth gain knowledge and skills that empower them to understand, critically assess, and communicate those factors that place them and people in their communities at risk for underage and problem gambling. This approach places youth—particularly those who experience disparities and inequitable balances of power—at the center of community change.

Photovoice is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) Office of Problem Gambling Services (OPGS).

Read the 2024 Malden Zine Here

Youth Mental Health Ambassadors Program

The Mental Health Ambassador program provides youth with training, education, and opportunities to be community change agents who work to reduce stigma and create a positive perception toward mental health and raising awareness of common mental health issues in the community. Youth earn a stipend for participation, and develop leadership, communication and professional development skills. This program runs during the school year and summer, and is open to youth that live or go to school in Everett, Malden, Somerville, Cambridge, Medford, Revere, Winthrop, and Chelsea.

The Spring 2025 application is now closed. Applications for the summer cohort will open in May 2025.

TEASA

Develop leadership and advocacy skills while learning about mental health and substance use prevention. Provide peer education and be a voice for teens in Everett. Join today!

Earn community service hours and connect with teens across the state on important issues around substance use, mental health and more. Founded in 2005 as Teens In Everett Against Substance Abuse, the group’s core values are: Youth, Community, Leadership and Advocacy.

Activities Include:

  • Educate and advocate for the health and wellbeing of youth at the local and state level, engage elected officials to strengthen policies to improve community health
  • Outreach campaigns to educate parents and other adults in the community about alcohol access and policies to reduce youth use
  • Participate in statewide coalitions like the.84.org and Teens Leading the Way that address tobacco prevention, criminal justice reform, youth jobs, and more
  • Work across sectors and in partnership with city leadership, departments, community organizations and other youth groups to address health equity and racial justice
  • Volunteer at community events
  • 2020 recipient of The 84 Movement's Peer Outreach Award

Sign Up Today

Training and Professional Development

Everett Youth Worker Network strives to build a collaborative community. The Network supports the healthy development and social and emotional wellbeing of youth while also building the professional development of caring supportive adults; including community and school-based personnel.

Youth Mental Health First Aid is designed to teach parents, family members, caregivers, teachers, school staff, peers, neighbors, health and human services workers, and other caring adults how to help people with mental health or substance use problems or who are in crisis. Available in English and Spanish.

QPR is a nationally recognized and evidence-based suicide prevention training for youth and adults to be able to recognize risk factors and the warning signs of suicide. Question, Persuade, Refer is a universal emergency mental health intervention to help identify suicidal individuals and provide the knowledge and tools to help prevent suicide.

Teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA) teaches teens in grades 9-12, or ages 14-18, how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges in their friends and peers. Topics covered include: Common signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges; Common signs and symptoms of a mental health crisis, particularly suicide; Impact of school violence and bullying on mental health; How to start the conversation about mental illnesses and substance use with friends; How to seek the help of a responsible and trusted adult.

Other Trainings and Workshops:

For a full list of trainings and workshops for youth and adults, click the links below:

School-based Programs 

CHA's Sexual and Reproductive Health program leads school-based programming in Everett and Somerville for both in-school and out-of-school time.

Contact Us

Jaime Lederer, MSW, MPH, Director

Phone: 617-806-8776

Email

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