To our YouthZone community

Our Board of Directors and staff are in touch with schools, courts, colleagues and public health concerning news and events surrounding COVID-19 in our communities. Our focus is to continue services for our youth and families who need support. Our commitment to you is that we will work to provide options for care.

We are aware that being responsible to our community also means that we need to limit our group interactions, keeping our youth and our staff healthy. We will be using teleconferencing and phone connections so our staff can continue to work. Our offices will be closed except by appointment. To continue to provide services in a limited and different capacity, we hope you will all stay connected with each other.

CLICK HERE for updated information from Colorado Department of Public Health And Environment

Words of Advice from Charla Belinski, our Board Vice President

These are unprecedented times in our lifetime. For many of us, the closest comparison we have is to the days following the attacks on 9/11 when businesses closed, flights were grounded, vacations and lives were put on hold amid the uncertainty of it all.

There is one defining difference. After 9/11, people gathered. We wanted to be together, in our houses of worship, in friends’ homes, in bars, in school parking lots, around the water cooler. We processed our fears and anger and grief IN COMMUNITY. We humans are hard-wired to be in community.

But rather than being able to gather together in these uncertain times, COVID-19 has put us in isolation, stockpiling supplies should we need to be quarantined and desperately avoiding people. We are left to process alone and make sense of what’s happening by what we see on social media. That is a distinction which could have massive negative effects on our overall well-being. When humans are isolated, we are more prone to depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, and harmful behaviors. Lack of human contact is bad for humans!

The great writer C.S. Lewis wrote about the atomic bomb some 72 years ago. His words ring true today:

 If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb [or COVID-19, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a virus can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.  

       — “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

In the days and weeks ahead, as you do what you must to protect your health and those you love, be sure to reach out. Go to the park, say hello to the neighbors, grab a pizza, ski, volunteer, go to work. Wash your hands, yes — but live your lives to the fullest extent you can while taking precautions.  Because happiness, not fear, is the best antidote for anything that ails you!

  Take good care of yourself and one another!