A quality that’s often missing from community youth services is coordination among programs. This is where Sacramento, California, excels, working as a region to coordinate youth-serving organizations regarding both advocacy and services.
Sac Kids First is a coalition 36 youth-serving organizations that was formed in 2017, with the original impetus coming from a group of young Hmong leaders active in the East Bay Asian Youth Center. These leaders surveyed youth to identify their concerns and needs and to build a coalition with the goal of establishing a dedicated funding source for children and youth.
Sac Kids First worked during the COVID-19 epidemic to persuade the City Council to invest federal stimulus funding in youth services, with a focus on serving youth and families impacted by the pandemic. As a result, the City Council dedicated over $8 million to youth services from the federal allocation.
Youth Forward serves as the coordinating entity of Sac Kids First, with a goal of increasing the wellbeing of children and youth in the Sacramento region, particularly children and youth most affected by poverty, violence and trauma. Youth Forward also works on youth leadership and mental health programs, including work during the pandemic to produce a series of virtual training sessions in youth mental health for youth development workers.
In 2022, Youth Forward and Sac Kids First led a campaign to create a children’s fund in the city budget, which was placed on the ballot that July and adopted November 8th with support from 62% of the voters. Under this measure, the city spends the equivalent of 40% of the tax revenues from cannabis sales on child and youth services (about $9 million annually, in addition to what the city currently spends on youth services).
The fund, which is overseen by an advisory commission funds services in the following areas:
- To prevent and reduce child and youth homelessness
- To support the mental and emotional health of children and youth
- To prevent youth violence
- To prevent and reduce youth substance abuse
- To support the healthy development of children ages 0 to 5
Sac Kids First, is also working at the state level to generate revenue for kids’ programs.
In other work by Youth Forward, youth leaders, won a commitment from the City Board of Education during the 2022-2023 school year to ensure that all middle schools and high schools in the district will have safe spaces on campus for LGTBQ students. During the 2024-2025 school year, Youth Forward organizers led the development of Schools as Centers of Wellness, which included placement of mental health clinicians at schools in Sacramento County.
In its presentation to the jury as part of winning designation as an All-America City in 2022, Sacramento also highlighted youth programs related to literacy, helping kids in housing developments, and support for post-secondary education.
Sacramento’s Literacy Coalition brings together local and statewide organizations, non-profits, education administrators, government officials, funders and like-minded individuals in monthly meetings to advance literacy by raising awareness, increasing out-of-school time literacy programming, including tutoring, summer reading, book giveaways, and advocating for the Science of Reading in all classrooms.
Another community effort is the city’s Promise Zone, which was the highlight of the city’s application for this year’s All-America City award. As one of the hundreds of cities working with the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Sacramento has focused much of its attention on assisting youths in public housing and has served more than 14,000 kids in all through partnerships with the library and other organizations.
The city also began a new effort to serve young people at the other end of the spectrum—teenagers, mostly—through a project sponsored by the National League of Cities called Youth Excel. This program will help youths with access to quality postsecondary education and career pathway opportunities that lead to higher wage jobs. Each of the six cities involved in the program formed a cross-sector team and is connecting with city cohort peers to share and refine promising approaches to overcoming barriers to accessing quality jobs in STEM fields.
Literacy and other services to improve youth well-being are a way of life for city leaders in Sacramento. As former mayor Darrell Steinberg said about literacy efforts during his presentation at City Hall of the All-America City award, “We haven’t solved this problem, but at least we’re making progress.”
The National Civic League (NCL) is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing inclusive civic engagement and strengthening democracy by helping communities build more equitable, participatory, and effective local governance.
