Youth Development Peer Network

Steering Committee

The YDPN is governed by a volunteer Steering Committee. Steering Committee members are youth workers and represent themselves at our decision-making table. The Steering Committee sets priorities, ensures fiscal sustainability, and guarantees a youth worker perspective in all aspects of the YDPN. Currently, there are 11 Steering

Executive Committee

The Executive Committee is comprised of at least two Steering Committee members that are dedicated to ensuring the success and integration of youth worker voices into the organizations. Executive Committee members fulfill the tasks of the traditional roles of president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary without the titles in order to maintain a peer structure within the organization. Executive Committee members also supervise the YDPN Program Manager.

Steering Committee Members:

Jora Atienza-Washington is currently the Director of School-Based Programs at OASES in Oakland, where she’s worked since 2005. Jora brings a wealth of experience in the areas of after-school programming, youth development, program management and community collaborations. Prior to joining OASES, Jora worked for several years as an After School Site Coordinator in the Mission District of San Francisco. She also served as an AmeriCorps member for two years, working with San Francisco public school teachers to implement cycles of inquiry and action research projects in their classrooms through a cognitive coaching model.

Jora is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles where she majored in Italian Studies and Linguistic Anthropology. She is conversant in Tagalog, Spanish and Italian and hopes to learn more languages in the future. She was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Southern California at the age of 11.

Stacey Daraio has been working with the Community Network for Youth Development for the last ten years, first as the Director for Youth Development Capacity Building and Partner Developmer, and now as Deputy Director. Her work has brought her into contact with multiple community initiatives, community based organizations, and public agencies.

She has extensive experience in the areas of direct youth programming, program development and implementation, instructional design, course development, needs assessment and project management. Working with a diverse group of researchers, evaluators, funders and youth serving organizations, Stacey has developed technical assistance systems to support youth workers and youth serving organizations to improve their work with young people.

Stacey has worked extensively throughout the Bay Area, the state of California and nationally, demonstrating her commitment to creating universal quality youth programming.

Tristen Fredrickson discovered youth development many moons ago in the Pacific Northwest and has been stationed in the Bay Area for the past 3 years. Her enthusiasm for working with youth, specifically girls, led her down here after leaving an unsatisfying career in the tech field. Her latest venture as the Girl & Teen Program Director at Girls Inc. of the Island City combines her passions for math and science, outdoor sports, working with and empowering girls, and having fun while making a difference. In her spare time, she can be found out and about in nature (hiking, biking, camping, windsurfing, etc), cozied up with a good book, relaxing at Dolores Park and traveling as much as her busy schedule will allow.

Marquez Gray is a 21-year old person of color and a proud father of a 13-month old baby girl. Heis the Senior Outreach Coordinator of a program called CHALK (Communities in Harmony Advocating Learning and Kids). CHALK’s focused mission is transformative youth development and employment. CHALK hires high-risk youth in San Franciscoand puts them in positions that will help develop and sustain their working skills. As the Senior Outreach Coordinator he provides mentoring and professional support to the youth that he has the privilege to work with. He can personally attest to how imperative youth workers are by being a former client it was youth workers who helped guide him from a 16-year old boy with no goals for life to a surviver who will live to see age 25 to now having a full-time career as a youth worker.

Jan Holyko

Ryan McCarthy

Chris Ramos

Vicky Valentine, Trainer/Health Educator at HIFY, facilitates youth health workshops and adult provider trainings all over the Bay Area in English and in Spanish, which ensures that she has a pulse on not only youth worker issues, but on the issues that affect the youth that we all work on behalf of. She has lived in Oakland for a quarter century, and feels very pasionate about working with other youth of color, and queer youth.

Vanessa Varko

Executive Committee Members are:

Vicky Valentine and Vanessa Varko - Supervision

Jora Atienza-Washington and Ryan McCarthy - Resources Co-Chairs

Tristen Fredrickson  - Continuous Improvement Chair