The Colorado National Guard’s Child and Youth Program provides year-round engaging programming for school-age children of military families.
The program aims to sustain the quality of life of military youth through a variety of activities and camps focusing on resilience, life skills, and peer support in a fun and supportive environment year-round.
In recent years, the program has expanded through the hard work, innovation and dedication of a few of the CONG Joint Resiliency Directorate (J9) members.
“When I came in as the State Family Program Director, I wanted to take time to watch and observe the program as I noticed that most of the programming was repetitive in nature,” said Suzanne Buemi, state family program director. “Additionally, I noticed that we were not serving the greater population and there just seemed to be a core group of youth that was benefiting from the program.”
The J9 was officially established Dec. 1, 2022, following a directive for the National Guard to implement a dedicated full-time Prevention Workforce. Under the budget allocated to this work force, the J9 consolidated and reorganized many other resources under one umbrella including the Child & Youth Program.
Lead Child & Youth Program Coordinator Kimberly Weeks has been with J9 for around three years pursuing new and innovative ways to engage CONG families and children.
Events such as Back-to-School, Halloween, movie nights, camp-in-a-box for those that can’t attend in-person camps like residential camps and day camps, are just part of what is offered.
“We do everything from assisting families when Soldiers are deployed, finding resources that are available to them like grants for sports and afterschool activities, to childcare, to fun things for the kids,” she said. “We do a lot to bring the youth of the Colorado National Guard together so they can feel a sense of community because they are not on a base where they are surrounded by other kids that are going through the same experiences as them.”
The overall program is tailored to children ages 6-18. Some events are geared more towards those 6- to 12-year-olds, where residential camps are currently 10- to 18-year-olds.
A youth advisory council is offered for teens where they can also do service projects in the community and monthly meetings where they discuss resiliency and leadership skills and other programs eligible for credits toward their high school diploma.
Colorado is part of region VIII which includes Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah.
“Once a year, we get our teens together to meet with other states so they can see what their teens are doing and get inspired and share information,” Weeks said. “There are a million different things kids go through when their parents are in the service, when they are deployed or not. Whether it’s a program or services, we’re really about creating that community with the youth, bringing them together, giving them the school, the skills, and the tools they need to be successful.”
The Child and Youth Program is primarily green-funded, meaning the Army National Guard is the main focus, however, since the program falls under the responsibility of the CONG J9, Joint Resiliency Directorate, Colorado Air National families are invited and encouraged to participate.
“We have been able to include some of the Air kid in the activities,” Weeks said. “The Airman Family Readiness has put some funds into some of the events so we can meet the needs of more of those Air kids, which has been great.”
When Weeks first started, she said she noticed the program was servicing the same families over and over and over again. But the program has grown to nearly 500 people that she is now reaching out to every time there is an event.
“What I've noticed in the past couple years is that every year we see new faces, in addition to the kids who have already been participating,” she said. “Which proves to me that our marketing, our communication, everybody is getting the word out.”
Weeks anticipated that her newest event, in its first year, would be, generously, projected to have 50 participants; however, the final count was three times that with more than 150 kids signed up.
“Our most successful event that we had this past year, was our camp in the box, Weeks said. “We put together a box with crafts, little treats, and an activity packet. There was some resiliency training and some cooking. The packets had a whole bunch of stuff to do.”
With successes, there are also struggles. Weeks said her staff is small so they must enlist the help of volunteers because of the state requirements of adult to child ratios.
Volunteers are a huge part of supporting the program,” she said. “We have a couple who have been with the program for 10 or 12 years. Some just help at one event. But there’s only the two of us trying to do stuff for the whole state. That is our biggest hurdle that we have. The more volunteers I have, the bigger our events can be. We are successful, but not as successful as I would want to be. I would like to be able to bring 100 kids in for resident camp.”
Buemi praised the efforts of the team, stating that with each year, they receive slight increases in program funding, which allows them to do more and include a greater number of young people.
“I would like to expand our program by offering youth classes on how to manage their finances and how to set themselves up for success in their future financially,” Buemi said. “Also, introduce our youth to high-demand jobs relevant to Colorado’s economy such as the cyber/tech industry, aviation maintenance/pilot programs, and emergency response or disaster response industries. I would like to shift focus from receiving support to actively contributing to the community. This will provide the youth with a strong sense of purpose and connectivity.”