Category: Advocacy

We know that high-quality youth development programs transform lives and build stronger communities—but Washington still hasn’t caught up with the 26 other states already allocating centralized state funding for youth development. Washington has secured small funding wins across state agency budgets, but this approach leaves funding vulnerable and makes it difficult to track the true extent of cuts across budgets. One of the ways that School’s Out Washington (SOWA) supports our state’s youth development field is by serving as the backbone of the Youth Development Strategy Table (YDST), a statewide coalition of public, non-profit, and community stakeholders working together to … [ ]

As an intermediary in Washington, mobilizing, convening, and advocating to fund the youth development field were fundamental objectives in 2023. Upon hiring our strategy and partnerships director, Fahren Johnson, she restructured the Youth Development Strategy Table (YDST), and SOWA became the formal backbone for the coalition. Fahren also focused on uplifting the coalition voices. The YDST, a coalition of public, nonprofit, and community stakeholders, now had an organized leadership team. “We now have a co-chair model, and it really pulls from the depth of knowledge of the field,” said Fahren. “I think this will be strategic and key to keeping … [ ]