About PTYF

Pathways To Your Future, Inc., a non-profit community based organization, is an outgrowth of Building on Sobriety, Inc. founded in 1989. Building on Sobriety provided housing and support services to over 3,000 residents during the ten years that it was in operation. As Building on Sobriety was winding down, we became a youth driven organization. Pathways To Your Future Mentor Program is a member of the Los Angeles Mentoring Coalition, California Mentor Foundation, the National Mentor Partnership and the State of California Governor’s Mentoring Partnership. In additional to providing emergency and transitional housing to young adults, we provide youth leadership development classes, alcohol and drug education and other educational programs to young adults. W are active participants in our community including involvement in the “Stop the Killing” Campaign which brings attention to gang and gun violence in our community.

Listed below is a partial list of the locations where we provide Youth Leadership Development Training and Alcohol and Drug Education.

• PTYF provides Youth Leadership Development training to at risk youth at Special Services for Groups/Occupational Therapy Group, a non-profit group with over 25 years of experience helping youth find quality and meaningful jobs. Over the past 4 years, 120 youth have graduated from this class.
• PTYF provides a series of yearly workshops to assist students and families in making better choices to improve their character, behavior, pregnancy prevention and remaining and graduating from high school through a contract with Los Angeles Office County of Education (LACOE) under their Educational Programs/Parent Program, Youth Development Program.
• Pathways To Your Future provide alcohol, drug and tobacco education and prevention to middle school students at the Los Angeles County Office of Education Alternative Schools. The goal for these students is to overcome risk factors that can lead to educational failure, school drop out and involvement in delinquent activities, including gang crime and drug abuse.
• Pathways To Your Future as a subcontractor for Innovative Educational Systems through a contract with the South Bay One-Stop Business and Career Centers trained 32 students in the “Blueprint for Workplace Success Program”. Twenty-nine students were certified workplace ready. Innovative Educational Systems (I.E.S) as a contractor for the South Bay Workforce Investment Board Youth Development Council subcontracts Pathway To Your Future to provide school to career training (Blueprint for Workplace Success) for various high schools in the Los Angeles South Bay area.
• Los Angeles County Office of Education contracted Pathways Mentor Program to provide mentoring for the L.A. DADS Mentor Program. The project implemented at Los Angeles County Probation Department juvenile camps, residential group placement facilities for male juveniles and Community Education Centers (CEC). L.A. DADS provides an intensive parenting program designed for juveniles’ ages 14-18 years in the Los Angeles probation system. Pathways To Your Future fulfilled all of the contractual goals and objectives.
• Pathways To Your Future has received numerous awards and certificates from U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villagrosia; Assemblyman Jerome Horton; former California Speaker Herb Wesson; Mayor Dorn of the city of Inglewood; the key to the city of Hawthorne and the list goes on.

Pathways To Your Future actively involves its clients in community activities such as the “Stop the Killin” Campaign and the Youth Speak Out. The training that we provide is more than classroom theory. Youth are encouraged to actively participate in their community as youth leaders. Youth have a voice in our program. The benefits include youth not only having classroom and one on one training but our program allows the youth to learn leadership skills in real life settings. In addition, this raises the youth’s self-esteem to know that they are important and worthwhile in the community in which they live. The youth also learn to trust adults in a positive manner. Many of these youth have no positive male role model in the home and we reinforce positive African-American and Latino male role models in all that we do. We also have fun – this year alone our clients have attended a L.A. Kings Hockey Game, L.A. Clippers Basketball Games and several youth participated in the Los Angeles Martin Luther King Day Parade.

There is a single principle central to The Pathways To Your Future, Inc. philosophy:

BRINGING THE "NEIGHBOR" BACK TO THE "HOOD" ©
THE CONCEPT OF "NEIGHBORHOOD" IS NOT DIVISIBLE

A little over 30 years ago, our communities were called "Neighborhoods". There was a sense of community and a fostering of well being among the residents. It was the men who would stand up and fight to protect their family and neighborhood from outside violence. It was the men who confronted any and all negative forces that could bring harm to his neighborhood. And the women, the very soul of the neighborhood who would make sure the children were educated, involved with community and church. It was the women who kept the children. The neighborhoods were diverse before "diverse" meant anything: consisting of families of all races, creeds, and colors. In the neighborhood there were traditional households consisting of a father, mother, children, and often there was the extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins under one roof. There was an instinctual relationship amongst the parents and children in the neighborhood, born from the concept of "indivisibility and that together we stand" in order to thrive:

• The parents insured that their children accepted the responsibility for their own behavior, at home or at school.
• The fathers were responsible for the financial security of the family. He provided ?their sons with their rights of passage into adulthood.
• The mothers were responsible for caring for the home and children. She provided their daughters with their rights of passage into adulthood.
• Many attended the church of their choice every Sunday.
• There was a strong sense of community, and pride in belonging to one's neighborhood.
• Friends and neighbors felt a sense of responsibility and pride in making sure that the neighborhood was clean and safe for the children and the elderly.

Even though today's family structure and dynamics have changed greatly from that past, there is still a need and desire to nurture and protect our children and neighbors. Today, our communities that were once called "Neighborhood" are now being called "Hoods". The "Hood" is everyman for himself, no friends or families, just gangs. The "Hood" is turf and trespassing without commitment, without legacy. The "Hood" is transient and disposable.

In order to bring about some form of rejuvenation or rebirth to our communities, we must address the "impersonalization" of those living in what have been called the "Hoods"… it's about "bringing the neighbor back to the hood".