With support from the California Arts Council, ARTS FOR INCARCERATED YOUTH NETWORK will maintain and enhance the coordination of our arts programming as it applies to all LA County juvenile detention facilities. We seek to leverage the strength and reach of the network to lift up youth and community voices through arts as a means to educate the broader public and advocate for meaningful change in order to enhance youth well-being through creative expression and the arts.
Under AHJN, 23 member agencies provide high-quality arts education that includes creative writing, spoken word, visual arts, theater, dance, digital media, and music programming to system-involved and at-promise youth in Los Angeles County— and the adults who serve them. We serve youth at Probation-run facilities, schools, and community sites in neighborhoods throughout the county. In 2015, we piloted the first-ever coordinated, multidisciplinary arts program for youth experiencing incarceration in Los Angeles County. After receiving positive feedback from the youth and staff involved, that pilot has now grown to ongoing, year-round arts programming.
Today, AHJN coordinates arts education for justice system-involved young people, youth leadership development, youth- and member-led advocacy, and community-based arts services that support wellbeing as a means of prevention for at-promise youth. We provide healing-informed arts education programming to 2,000 young people a year.

