Youth Career Aptitude 
Project Services

Youth CAPS: Bringing Relevant Skills to Youth

Highlighted as a Best Practice model program in the Washington State, Lieutenant Governor Brad Owens' 1999 and 2000 books: “Take A Page from Our Book”. A crime/violence prevention and intervention program that has a two-pronged approach: youth and their parent(s)/caregivers. Served 150 youth and families.


Overall, Youth CAPS is a model example of drawing on the strengths, talents, and resources of a community. The program illustrates how the community as a whole can pool its resources to help young people make healthy and responsible decisions.


It lies within our reach to change the futures of the disadvantaged, at-risk youth. The children who today, are at risk of growing into under-skilled, and undereducated adults, who are unable to help their own children and to realize the American dream they can instead, become productive participants in a twenty-first century America whose aspirations they can pass on to their children.


It has never been more important that it is today for our children to not only have knowledge of information technologies, but also to have the access to it. It’s vital that our young people acquire high skills that will prepare them to take their rightful places in the workplace.

Character Transformation Through 4 Phases

Youth CAPS help youth become more caring, productive, and socially responsible members of society through an unparalleled, best-practiced, one-year long comprehensive behavior change model with Four-Phases, three (3) months in duration for each phase:


  • Phase I – Self Discovery (Self Esteem/Self Confidence)
  • Phase II- Career ID (Aptitude, Interest Testing, Assessment & Exploration)
  • Phase III-Technology/Basic Business Principles (Computer Training, Financial Literacy, Social Media, STEM)
  • Phase IV- Putting It All Together (4-H Know Your Government, Community Mobilization, Community Service Project)

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Young Business Men

Fiscal Sponsorship: Young Business Men (YBM) engages high-risk youth, offering programs that teach and encourage physical well-being, teamwork, role modeling, and leadership, allowing them to become positive contributors to their families and their communities and to perpetuate these skills for future generations.

YBM works to support a diverse group of young men, ages 13-17, to whom negative influences and environmental conditions of the urban landscape offer little hope and immeasurable help. These young men are often less fortunate, misguided, angry, and effected by drugs and gangs.

Most have essentially lost hope. Fortunately, within this marginalized population we still find those who are driven, motivated, and desirous for a better and brighter future. YBM offers youth this opportunity through a program with highlights four key objectives:


  • Education: Encourage each young man toward High School completion and, if desired, college preparedness. Provide access to the tools and programs to be successful.
  • Business: Encourage entrepreneurship by fostering ideas, teaching money management and investment skills, mentoring students and bolstering their networks. Introduce youth to different forms of entrepreneurship which include starting their own company, buying an existing business or franchise, etc., and identifying which is the best fit for students’ personal skill sets and ambitions.
  • Physical Fitness: Promote a routine of physical conditioning, which will help to reduce negative health-related outcomes, and to condition those desiring an athletic career.
  • Community: Use newfound skills to beautify and uplift the community, physically, economically, and socially. Educate young men on gang association and its negative influences.

Youth Prevention/Intervention programs Initiated since 1995:

Nature's Symphony

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Faces of Humanity

Portraits of people from around the globe
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Beyond Boundaries

Visual odyssey across continents
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Sands of Time

Stark beauty of desolate dunes
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Project Mental Champions

A "learning outreach" to help elementary children and their families develop skills they need to be successful in school, community and the "world of work."
African American Youth Mentoring Program

Provides youth mentoring leadership experiences for African American youth residents of Tacoma public housing; outreach, prevention, and resiliency skills training.
Hilltop Youth Council

Platform for youth to exhibit their leadership skills among their peers and in their communities.
Teens Against Tobacco Use

Train youth to become "Teen Educators" to deliver a tobacco curriculum to younger children to help motivate them to choose a healthy way of life.
Inner City 4-H Club

The "Learning by Doing" philosophy of 4-H emphasizes the importance of involving members in the learning process. What people hear, they may doubt, what people see, they may possible doubt; but what people do, they cannot doubt.
Media Literacy

Serving an affective-based substance abuse prevention education activity in a variety of venues including schools, low-income housing areas, and community youth programs 11-weeks.Platform for youth to exhibit their leadership skills among their peers and in their communities.
Shepherding Homes

Addresses the basic need of shelter in the lives of homeless youth. This program is designed to "guide and watch over" the transition of youth from "at-risk" to "at-hope".Train youth to become "Teen Educators" to deliver a tobacco curriculum to younger children to help motivate them to choose a healthy way of life.
Drop-In Center for Homeless/Street Youth

Through the collaboration of Pierce County Youth Service providers, we are increasing awareness of youth who are homeless, street involved or "at-risk" of becoming homeless by identifying relevant data and developing a strategic plan to implement solutions. (Jason Lee Middle School).The "Learning by Doing" philosophy of 4-H emphasizes the importance of involving members in the learning process. What people hear, they may doubt, what people see, they may possible doubt; but what people do, they cannot doubt.
Washington State University

Health Rocks! ® is curricula for a healthy living program targeted at young people ages 8 to 14. Teen and adult facilitators share hands-on activities that educate youth on the consequences of tobacco, alcohol, and drug use.

The program aims to:

  • Reduce youth smoking and tobacco use.
  • Help youth build life skills that lead to healthy lifestyle choices with special emphasis on youth smoking and tobacco use prevention.
  • Help youth understand influences and health consequences of tobacco, drug, and alcohol use to make healthy choices.
  • Engage youth and adults in partnership to develop and implement community strategies that promote healthy lifestyle choices.
  • Build positive, enduring relationships with youth involved as full partners through widely varying "communities of interest" to address youth risk behaviors.
  • Delivering Lasting Impact.
COVID-19 Response and Recovery
Safe Homes Youth CAPS Division presents The Timpani Project®

In 2023, Safe Homes Youth CAPS Division presents The Timpani Project® - designed to reach 3,000 individuals, distribute 5,000 COVID-19 Home Test Kits and 300,000 Digital Impressions through the Youth Empowerment & Advocacy (YEA) Team Model Cascaded Approach (In-person advocacy events, Pop-Up’s, Community Tabeling Events/Celebrations, Tailgates). To recruit and train 100 K-12 BIPOC & LGBTQ+IA (Two-Spirited) youth “to bring their voices to the center of the table” from Pierce, King, Snohomish Counties.


The Timpani Project® -will enable those youth to take active leadership roles in promoting COVID-19 updates, information and messaging to establish testing infrastructure and protocols for the distribution of COVID-19 Home Test Kits along with Communication of the Importance and Value of Messaging through Video ART that ensure safe, uninterrupted, full-time, in-person learning for K-12 and Healthy Children, Youth, & Families.


The Timpani Project® - is within a core set of infectious disease prevention strategies that has been established as part of the everyday operations of Safe Homes, its partnering community-based and faith-based organizations serving children, youth and families within the K-12 schools and child cares. For the purposes of the Youth CAPS Division a core sub-set is COVID-19 Testing Access.


In 2022, Safe Homes PILOTED, the “Timpani Project” that was funded by Health Commons Project, L2R Impact Fund. The Timpani is an instrument that has its roots in ancient times and can be traced to the primitive past. The ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Hebrews and other people used percussion instruments similar to the Timpani. It is with this backdrop that Safe Homes used “The Timpani” as a symbolic communications tool to help reach historically marginalized and underserved communities with information and education about COVID-19 Testing Access, Messaging and Vaccination. 


“The Timpani Project” 2022 - Outcome Based Evaluations (OBE) w/Logic Model-Results Driven:


Trained and developed 75 K-12 BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ (Two-Spirited) youth in Pierce, King, Snohomish Counties utilizing the Youth Empowerment & Advocacy (YEA) Team members on COVID-19 information, awareness, testing and vaccination. The YEA Team engaged in leading research focused on successful K-12 COVID-19 messaging and key stakeholder messaging and shared those messages during in-person advocacy events and increased distribution of COVID-19 Video ART Messages with 60,000 impressions over selected digital platforms.

Reached 1500 individuals and key stakeholders through Video ART by sharing those messages during In-person Advocacy Events, Community Tabling Events and Cultural Celebrations with significant artistic components “in bringing youth voice and their active leadership to the center of the table” for COVID-19 Video ART Messaging.

Increased distribution of COVID-19 Video ART Messages with 60,000 Impressions on selected Digital Media Platforms.


  • In 2021, the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs awarded a grant for the MILWIN Division through the Nonprofit Community Recovery Grant Program. This grant award will assist with Safe Homes post-pandemic economic recovery.
  • In 2021, “Ready Set Test” – a parent centered pilot that expands the existing “Prevention Reboot”; that focuses on students in need of support socially, emotionally, and/or academically as a result of COVID-19 school closures and “stay-at-home orders”. Funded by The City of Seattle, Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL).
  • In 2021, YCAPS Division: Prevention Reboot (PR) – The mission of PR is to strategically champion learning beyond the classroom so that all youth thrive in a community-setting. Funded by School’s Out Washington Elevate.

The Timpani Project® - is within a core set of infectious disease prevention strategies that has been established as part of the everyday operations of Safe Homes, its partnering community-based and faith-based organizations serving children, youth and families within the K-12 schools and child cares. For the purposes of the Youth CAPS Division a core sub-set is COVID-19 Testing Access.