Shoshone-Paiute Tribes Native Youth Program

The Shoshone Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation will implement a Native Youth Program for the purpose of “Enhancing School Capacity to Address Youth Violence.” The program will work closely with the Owyhee Combined School to create a School Safety Strategic Plan in Year One and to provide direct support, mentoring, tutoring, and a career / college preparatory program that will include weekly meetings, parental involvement, community activities, college visits, and education support throughout the three-year program period.

The program will focus on middle school students and build a cohort that will remain together until high school graduation with services including to matriculation in a college, university or career preparation program. The initial year will deliver services to seventh and eighth grade students, with a new seventh grade class added in the third year, while continuing to work with the students already engaged. Thus, in Year 1, the program will focus on 42 students. Based on current enrollments in grades three through six, the numbers will increase to 76 in Year 2, 99 in Year 3. Not all students will engage and not all parents will support the efforts, but they may.

The program design will provide multiple opportunities for students to be engaged. These will include the trips participate in Native Youth Summits and Conferences as well as to visit colleges and universities, including Tribal Colleges and Universities as well as career and college fairs. The program will create opportunities to connect with mentors, job shadow tribal positions, academic tutoring and support, physical education activities, connections to other services including behavioral and physical health, and weekly cohort meetings.

Goal: The Tribes/ overarching goal for the project is to “engage Shoshone Paiute youth prevent violence and drug abuse, improve school performance and graduate career ready and able to enter the work place and/or to enter and complete post-secondary education.” 

Objectives: The first objective is that the program participants will show documented higher levels of increased healthy lifestyle behaviors compared to historic data, non-participants and previous cohorts. The second objective is that program participants will show documented higher levels of decreased unhealthy lifestyle behaviors compared to historic data, non-participants and previous cohorts.

Outcomes: The targeted and measurable outcomes include 70 percent graduation rate, higher standardized test scores, participant GPAs of over 3.0, 80 percent of participants will apply to and be accepted in a post-secondary education program, and a higher education graduation rate of 75 percent. Finally the creation of a School Safety Strategic Plan in year one is also a measurable outcome.