We Are the City Spotlight: Huckleberry Youth Programs

By Heather Mathews, Director of Marketing & Events

For 54 years, Huckleberry Youth Programs has partnered with Bay Area youth and families to advance social justice and equity in our community. In 1967, Huckleberry established the first runaway and homeless youth shelter in the United States, Huckleberry House, when the act of running away as a youth was considered a crime. Huckleberry later advocated for federal legislation that ultimately decriminalized the act of running away and allocated funding towards healing, rather than punitive services, for runaway youth. Huckleberry House is still welcoming youth and families in crisis, 24 hours a day, at 1292 Page Street.

Over the last five decades, we have expanded upon our restorative, youth-centered services, using a trauma-informed framework to collaborate with youth and families to build healthier relationships and more vibrant futures for themselves. Our programs focus on four service pillars, SAFETY, HEALTH, JUSTICE & EDUCATION. Mental health services are a key component of our service delivery and are integrated into every one of our programs.

Huckleberry also has an extensive history of developing adolescent health programs to address the emerging needs of youth. During the height of the AIDS epidemic, Huckleberry House residential counselor, Danny Keenan, noticed that youth at the shelter were engaging in activities putting them at higher risk for HIV infection. He developed a peer health educator training program to empower youth as health ambassadors on HIV-prevention in their communities; in 1989, Huckleberry’s peer-based HIV education program became recognized as a national program model by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The CDC awarded Huckleberry with the first HIV prevention grant for a runaway youth shelter, and we used those funds to open the Cole Street Youth Clinic. The clinic at 555 Cole Street, now known as the Huckleberry Youth Health Center, soon became the largest community-based adolescent health collaborative in San Francisco.

Over the years, Huckleberry has grown our comprehensive health programs for youth to include primary, sexual, reproductive health care, health education, mental health services, a second clinic in San Rafael’s Montecito Plaza, and linkages to additional services as appropriate. This year marks the 30th Anniversary of our Adolescent Health Services, and more than 180,000 youth have received Huckleberry health services in the past three decades.

Since the pandemic began in 2020, Huckleberry has been implementing health guidance from the WHO, CDC, and local government officials to adapt and adjust services in response to changing government guidelines. Huckleberry House has consistently remained open as an essential service in San Francisco, providing 24-hour crisis services throughout the pandemic.

Our therapists and counselors, embedded into all of our programs, adapted in-person therapy services to telehealth (phone or virtual platforms) and continue to take referrals and engage with clients both virtually and in-person. Offering telehealth services increased client access to our mental health services, and we anticipate delivering therapy using a hybrid model going forward.

Dedicated staff from the Huckleberry Advocacy & Response Team (HART) have been working remotely throughout the pandemic, but continue to respond to crisis calls in-person to establish a more trusting and meaningful connection with young people at the start of accessing our sensitive services for commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC).

Huckleberry’s Health Education team also modified our health education program for virtual delivery, creating interactive online recordings of health education workshops. Workshop recordings have allowed us to more easily share resources with other educators, increasing access to important health information and outreach. Huckleberry has also increased our health education social media presence in order to meet youth where they are and provide them with easily accessible health education and information on health resources.

Last fiscal year, our health education workshops reached more than 3,000 participants across the Bay Area. Ninety-six percent of surveyed workshop participants reported learning something new, and 92% reported that they would change their behavior as a result of the workshop.

We attribute our ability to continue quality service delivery throughout the pandemic to our incredibly passionate and dedicated staff!

San Francisco is definitely a great place for young people to grow up. Along with breathtaking natural beauty and dynamic cultural experiences, San Francisco offers neighborhoods full of rich diversity. As a local nonprofit with more than five decades of history in San Francisco, we also know firsthand how dedicated this community is to its youth. Our services could not have endured as long as they have without the San Francisco community supporting us and the young people who access our programming. During the pandemic, San Francisco united to support one another by masking, sheltering in place, and generously donating time and money to Huckleberry to ensure that our service delivery continued uninterrupted. Thank you, San Francisco!

For teens and their families everywhere, adolescence can be a difficult time. Many low-income youth face additional barriers, risks and pressures, making these years even more critical. Though challenging, adolescence presents a unique opportunity to change course and make choices that will lead to a more promising future.

Huckleberry Youth Programs firmly believes that young people need at least one caring, nurturing, trustworthy adult in their lives in order to thrive; someone who is there for them no matter what, who can provide a safe space and listen. San Francisco can help young people thrive by listening to them and by providing more opportunities for their voices to be heard.

Additionally, San Francisco can continue to fund organizations like Huckleberry Youth Programs whose mission is to educate, inspire, and support youth to develop healthy life choices, to maximize their potential, and to realize their dreams. As a community, we have to invest in education, provide opportunities for young people to realize their full potential, and prioritize mental health services.

This year, Huckleberry will begin a strategic planning process that will streamline our decision making, act as a road map for realizing our mission and vision, and promote sustainability for the organization as we define agency priorities and the funding that will enable their execution.

With a clear picture of our desired future, Huckleberry will be in a strong position to bring about that future. A strategic plan will significantly increase Huckleberry’s overall effectiveness and sustainability as an organization, as well as help strengthen our ability to fulfill our mission by achieving operational, programmatic, financial, and organizational maturity.

Our programming will also continue to evolve and meet the needs of youth and families in the Bay Area by addressing inequities in San Francisco through our Justice programming. Our two newest programs, Project READY and RESET, are examples of Huckleberry rising up to meet youth and families where there is a distinct need.

Project READY (Reconnecting, Educating & Achieving Dreams for Youth) tackles the school-to-prison pipeline by providing youth with potential for academic success with mental health services, case management, and family support.

Data shows that a major risk factor for criminal activity is school failure, and the highest rate of school failure occurs during the transition from middle to high school. Project READY ensures that students at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School and Willie L. Brown, Jr. Middle School with behavioral or truancy concerns, successfully transition to high school and avoid contact with the juvenile justice system.

Project READY activities are designed using restorative and transformative justice best practices and meet youth where they are to help them build the knowledge, tools, and skills they need to reduce instances of disciplinary action at school.

Another example of our evolving Justice programming is RESET (Restoring and Empowering Social Equity & Truth), a restorative justice program which brings together juvenile justice-involved youth responsible for harm caused, and individuals directly impacted, to collaboratively create a restorative action plan.

RESET provides circle conferencing for conflict resolution to CARC clients, the greater community, and/or youth referred by probation as a diversion from the traditional juvenile justice system. Circle conferences create a supportive, safe, and confidential space to prevent harm, repair conflict, and strengthen community. This process allows the person harmed, responsible youth, family, and community members to collaboratively create a restorative plan that directly addresses the ways in which each participant was impacted.

Huckleberry is excited for what’s ahead in 2022 as we celebrate our past achievements and look ahead to a brighter future where ALL youth have the opportunity to succeed!