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Our Mission

At YEPPNW, we partner with schools and communities to serve youth today, to ensure tomorrow’s success. Our mission is to engage and empower youth so that they can be active participants in their environment. We strive to help young people develop a strong sense of self, emotional awareness, self regulatory skills, and the resiliency needed to build successful lives.

Smiling Teenage Boy

The Challenges that Today's Young People Face

For both the class of 2023 and the class of 2022,  81.3% of Oregon students graduated. Though this is the state's second highest graduation rate, there was a downward trend in Black graduates, falling to 73.1%, which remains below the state averages and their white and Asian peers.

 

Dropping out of high school can lead to limited employment prospects, lower wages, and poverty, potentially hindering the ability to secure a job or pursue higher education opportunities. Additionally, graduation rates can be influenced by individual and broader institutional factors such as family, school, and community.

 

Significant disparities exist among racial and ethnic groups in high school completion rates across the United States:

92.1%​

Asian

73.1%

Black/African-American

75.9%

Native Hawaiian/

Pacific Islander

78.6%

Hispanic/Latino

68.2%

American Indian/

Native Alaskan

79.8%

Multi-Racial

The Solution

Culturally Responsive Programming

The need for culturally responsive and inclusive school-based mental health programming has never been more apparent. When we invest in this programming, we are making a commitment to equitable life outcomes for some of our community’s most vulnerable people: our youth.

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Our Approach

According to the SEL framework, individual competencies along with a positive learning environment help to prevent or reduce students’ negative behaviors, such as aggression.

 

YEPPNW goes a step beyond, taking a three-legged-stool approach. Our focus is not only on the young person and their learning environment: we integrate the young person’s natural supports as well.

3 legged brown wooden stool with each leg labeled: Natural support, learning environment, student.

In order to build a solid foundation for young people to thrive, attention and focus must be given to all three legs of the stool. In order to do this effectively, we use the following values to guide our work:

  • Creativity: Consciously create a nurturing, caring, and safe environment for students.

  • Integration: Whenever possible, incorporate SEL skill-building into academic instruction.

  • Communication: Communicate early and often about SEL with all stakeholders.

  • Instruction: Provide explicit guidance and instruction in SEL skills.

  • Empowerment: Empower students to take charge of their own social and emotional learning.

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Evidence-Based Programming

Our program is grounded in Social Emotional Learning (SEL), an evidence-based framework for helping children and young adults develop the fundamental skills for life effectiveness through teaching 5 Core Competencies:

  • Self-Awareness

  • Social Awareness

  • Relationship Skills

  • Self-Management, and

  • Responsible Decision-Making

“Compared to control students, students participating in SEL programs showed significantly more positive outcomes... The higher academic performance of SEL program participants translated into an 11 percentile-point gain in achievement, suggesting that SEL programs tend to bolster, rather than detract from, students’ academic success."

Source: Mahoney, J. L., Durlak,J. A., Weissberg, R. P. (November 26, 2018)

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