With support from the California Arts Council, ARTS FOR INCARCERATED YOUTH NETWORK will develop and provide arts engagement training and technical assistance for staff at state youth detention facilities. AIYN will work with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to share our best practices with staff and help them implement an arts-based strategy of youth engagement, rehabilitation, and reentry, laying the foundation for local organizations to provide ongoing programming.
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.