Freedom 4 Youth (F4Y) facilitates weekly classes, workshops, and annual conferences focused on communication and social-emotional learning at detention facilities and the F4Y Center in Santa Barbara. Our primary leadership program, which has been facilitated weekly at Los Prietos Boys Camp since 2008, strives to identify and further enhance the skill sets that youth already have to support them in becoming leaders in the community and within themselves. This program facilitates opportunities for youth to give back to their community and creates openings in their lives for tolerance, diversity, and change. Youth members learn to share personal stories, use creative expression, discuss culture and family, engage in public speaking, develop active listening skills, and define what respect for self and others means to them. Some examples of activities include goal setting and dream boarding, realistic role-playing exercises that enact common social challenges and effective ways to respond to them, qualities and manifestations of healthy relationships, and public speaking competitions.
