Youth Engagement Participation Program | Cohort One

The Youth Engagement Participation Program is a project of the Vaccinate All 58 campaign of the California Department of Public Health, focusing on educating youth and centering their voices as leaders on safe practices to prevent COVID-19 infections and the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations based on the latest guidance.

The California State Alliance of YMCAs worked with three YMCAs from March 2022 to June 2022 to lift the voices of youth in educating communities about safe practices to prevent COVID-19. 

Each YMCA utilized interactive formats to engage with their community members, but each approach was targeted to their specific region:

• The Anaheim Family YMCA attended City of Anaheim’s Family Resource Fairs throughout different neighborhoods in Anaheim. Through these resource fairs, they were able to reach more than 160 families and over 960 youth across the Family Resource Fairs. By implementing lesson plans at 39 of their after-school programs and day camps, they were able to reach over a 1,000 youth.
• YMCA of San Joaquin County was able to reach over 100 families and youth through their family nights at the local pool. They hosted activities, such as tie dying face masks, that engaged families as well as youth in new, creative ways. After the community events as well as day camp lessons, youth became more aware about the transmission of germs and became advocates for themselves when they felt the transmission of germs was happening.
• YMCA of West San Gabriel Valley had 180 children participate in their summer day camp program in June which included lessons regarding COVID-19 as well as follow-up learning activities. These children received lessons about COVID-19. With these activities, they promoted their vaccination clinic which resulted in 27 total vaccinations, of which 17 of them were children.

With these stylized approaches, the YMCAs approached their communities in different ways, which resulted in reaching over 2,000 individuals, with the majority of them being youth.

In seeing the success throughout this project, the Alliance recognized the trust each YMCA had within their local communities, and found value in the strength of using our unified voice to make a collective impact throughout the communities we serve.