Youth Leadership Development

Mentorship, service, and youth-led projects grow confidence, purpose, and community leadership.

We champion youth leadership by guiding young people to embrace both power within themselves and power with their communities. Through mentorship, service, and advocacy, youth discover their voice, practice leadership, and contribute to stronger, more connected communities

Become a TRC Changemaker and join a group of paid fellows making a real difference in your community!

School-Year Program (Changemakers): While TRC Changemakers continue to engage in education around SAMHSA’s Wellness model and build community, they also dive deeper into issues of youth well-being through community partnerships and impact projects. Whether co-creating a youth mental health curriculum with UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and presenting at national conferences, doing photovoice research around educational inequities, or creating book clubs that positively represent youth of color and create opportunities to encourage elementary-aged youth, TRC Changemakers “stand for change we take action to create.”

Changemaker applications are available for internship graduates and returning Changemakers.

Summer Program (Interns): Our stipend-based summer interns join us for 8 weeks to connect, learn, and serve on issues of wellness and leadership. We introduce students to SAMHSA’s Eight Dimensions of Wellness – emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual – to increase awareness and improve the overall quality of life individually and collectively as a community. Students also apply what they are learning through community service opportunities such as serving at A Place at the Table, Neighbor to Neighbor ESL camps, Wake Up & Read, and learning about ACEs in order to better educate peers. Students who complete the summer internship are then eligible to apply for our school-year Changemaker Cohort Fellowship program.