Milwaukee Youth

A local youth-led organization’s summer program teaches young people how to be civically engaged.

Summer means warmer days, longer nights and summer vacation. For young people in Milwaukee it also means a new season of Milwaukee Recreation programming.

Data points often inform budgets and policy. They can also be a tool for transparency. That’s what happened when Milwaukee County recently released its dashboard showing racial demographics of youth in County corrections. Ninety-six percent were Black. Zero percent were white.

A Milwaukee family had been receiving gender-affirming care for their daughter for almost five years. Then, before one of the daughter's therapies, Children's Hospital of Milwaukee cancelled her appointment. That's when Wisconsin Watch reporter Phoebe Petrovic got involved.

Pathfinders' Power of Paths Youth Action Board is helping the organization find solutions to youth homelessness with help from the people who best understand the problem — young people themselves.

The Walker's Point Youth and Family Center has received federal support for its youth shelter since 1970s. Without warning, this funding was pulled, leaving Milwaukee with half its capacity for homeless youth shelter.

Volunteers have isolated the metro Milwaukee neighborhoods with the highest number of young people of color, knocking on doors more than 600,000 times this election cycle.

Black youth suicide in the United States has been labeled a crisis by some mental health experts. Research shows that Black youth under 13 are twice as likely to die by suicide.

At some point in our lives, we all experience trauma. Whether it is a natural disaster or violence in our neighborhood, we have to reach into our emotional toolbox to bring out resiliency. In Milwaukee, a local organization called STRYV365 is equipping young people and their caretakers with the emotional tools needed to cope with stress.

Wednesday, Milwaukee County officials unveiled a new mentoring program, called "Credible Messenger," for young people involved in the criminal justice system.