Alameda County

The Arts & Creativity program at REACH Ashland Youth Center is a program in partnership with Health Care Services of Alameda County (HCSA), the Center for Healthy Schools and Communities (CHSC), under the stewardship of the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Department. 

Arts & Creativity serves to provide accessible, quality arts programming for the Ashland area and surrounding Alameda County community. The program helps to create positive, equitable, and welcoming learning environments through professional teaching artists that frame their work through the lens of SEL. 

Along with leading beginning arts experiences for youth, the program also creates murals in the surrounding community through a partnership with the Deputy Sheriff's Activities League (DSAL), and has been awarded multiple grants for these "creative placemaking" endeavors from funders such as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the California Arts Council (CAC).

In this program, middle & high school members learn using the Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) model, involving a youth-hosted food and creativity focused program space. YPAR is an approach to community development in which youth take the lead, partnering with adults to create or find a solution to a problem they identify. Our youth members are given opportunities to learn about circular food economies, making good nutritional choices, and best practices in food services, all while building youth leadership skills and contributing to the youth/adult power sharing at REACH.

Learn more about the REACH Arts & Creativity Program.