Care Enough to Get in the Way Conference – January 26, 2017
The “Care Enough to Get in the Way” Youth Conference is a result of west valley leaders wanting to give teens leadership skills in hopes to prevent tragedies like the murder-suicide that occurred at an area school last year. Several west valley Police Chiefs, members of Leadership West Class 22 and Youth4Youth (Y4Y) noted that in this incident, as well as many active shootings, there were warning signs on social media, but no one took the threat seriously and no one wanted to get their friend in trouble. The conference will empower youth with resources and tools to return to their school and community and spread the word that it’s okay to Care Enough to Get in the Way. It will also include a follow-up parent component to provide much needed resources to families to join in the Care Enough to Get in the Way movement.
The conference will bring together 700 students from more than fifty (50) schools in the west valley. The conference is the Youth4Youth student-driven model that was created in response to the mass shootings at Columbine High School. As a result, Youth4Youth developed seven annual youth driven conferences to address relevant youth topics that youth leaders were able to take back to their schools. The focus of the January 26, 2017 conference is youth and social media. We should also highlight that this conference applies to bullying, cyber-bullying, LGBTQ issues, those with disabilities, drug addiction, depression, and ongoing threats against others – real issues facing our schools.
Our hope is “Care Enough to Get in the Way” becomes a movement which allows youth to have the confidence, and know-how, to say something when they see something out of the ordinary posted online or hear something in the halls at school. Follow the movement at #caerenough
