The grant provides two years of gap funding for in-school social-emotional learning programs led by facilitators to help teens build emotional management, deep listening, and social skills.
Today’s teenagers negotiate a troubling gauntlet of social media pressure, bullying, racism, and academic stress at a time when federal funding has vanished for supportive programs like AHA!
Created in 2005, AHA! fosters youth empowerment and mental health support in schools, using a Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) approach. The program’s facilitators include therapists and clinical trainees who serve as role models, cultivating self-care, emotion management, empathy, deep listening, and social and leadership skills. The goal is for teens to become more confident learners, more relaxed in school, and happier in their social and home environments. The goal is to counter the isolation and distress so common in today’s youth.
With this two-year grant, AHA! will serve 2,000 students, ages 11 to 16, at all public junior high and high schools in Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria school districts, preserving a vital program local districts cannot sustain on their own.
