At an early age of 6, Franco was introduced to photography and film-making that has led him on a creative and fulfilling path. In his free time, he is taking classes and workshops through colleges. As a part of school, he serves in the role of executive producer of media stuff for the Eagle Valley TV (EVTV) journalism class. EVTV was asked to create a story for Rocky Mountain PBS about the effects of the pandemic on schools. The story was such a success they put it on the national PBS news hour! Franco has entered many video competitions and found tremendous success. He won the national energy foundation competition, out of 145 contestants in 9 states, on a piece about global warming and the benefit of buying electric vehicles. He also won best cinematography, best lighting, best sound design, and best computer effects in the 2022 Dare Devil Film Fest. His work with EVTV also achieved 3 Best of Colorado awards. His amazing portfolio can be viewed here.

It is incredibly unique and impactful to serve in a community where so many organizations come together to assess and address the most critical needs facing local youth. Your Hope Center has humbly and vigorously crept from one school-based clinician in late 2018 to sixteen clinicians supporting every public school in the Eagle River Valley. Hannah Ross stepped up as the first school-based clinician in 2018, based out of Homestake Peak School. With a background in social work, Hannah adores advocating for families and embraces opportunities to change systems to support healthy environments and therefore positive behaviors. In her previous work as an Eagle County School District Prevention Coordinator, Hannah recognized the needs facing many local students. She focused on school and district strategies, as well as student referrals to therapy, yet there were frankly very few therapists available to refer to. Hannah was eager to join Your Hope Center when they opened their doors in our community and has grown into a supervisor role, supporting ten school-based clinicians. “I am most proud of our clinicians, pivoting to meet the needs of students, such as expanding into all elementary schools. We have also been enthusiastic about growing our intern program,” Hannah shares. As in many fields, our community does not have as many licensed clinicians as we need to meet the demands of the community, so Your Hope Center dove into a “grow your own”- type model. All Your Hope Center licensed clinicians have, at minimum, a masters in the field. In order to attract and retain quality therapists, they are able to hire and supervise masters and doctoral-level candidates as interns and enable them to gain their required hours and real-life experience by serving in schools with close support from veteran colleagues.

Your Hope Center school-based clinicians may provide individual, group, and family supports all within the school building for students and families, typically on a weekly basis. Common presenting concerns include trauma, domestic violence, depression, anxiety, grief, difficult peer relationships, family divorce, moving- any significant life or behavioral change that may have a long-term impact on the student. This enables school counselors to stay focused on addressing short-term needs, academic resources, and broad universal prevention supports for all students. 

Mountain Youth is hiring a Community Mobilizer to support the mission of the organization by building community partnerships, facilitating community-wide health and safety initiatives, engaging in advocacy, and increasing the youth voice.

If you have any questions, or would like more information, please contact Cameron Dole, Youth Engagement Coordinator, at cdole@mountainyouth.org

The CTC Leverage A State Wide Media Campaign Team has been working with enthusiasm on holding community events in upcoming months about promoting the CDPHE created resource Forward Together.

We always welcome new and enthusiastic participants in our Communities That Care teams. For more information on how to get involved, please contact Sandy Schroeder, Director of Community Engagement, at sschroeder@mountainyouth.org.

In alignment with Mountain Youth's values of being inclusive and bridging community, we are thrilled to be working with the Community Language Cooperative to host a training and certification course for interpreters. This is intended for individuals that have competency in English and Spanish spoken language and want to further their interpretation skills and/or become more marketable with a certification.