Dawn Stueckle
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Dawn has worked with young people in San Francisco for more than two decades, starting campus-based girls’ support groups at Lincoln High School and A.P. Giannini Middle School in the early 1990s and co-founding in 1992 the organization that would later become Sunset Youth Services. In addition to providing leadership for the nonprofit, managing staff, connecting with donors, and building relationships with young people served by Sunset Youth Services, Dawn partners with numerous community coalitions and city agencies as an advisor, change agent, and voice for the disenfranchised youth of the city.
In 2018 Dawn was elected to co-chair the Juvenile Justice Providers Association (JJPA)–– a consortium of community-based organizations that she helped establish in 2004 and which plays an important role in local policy-making, youth advocacy and has a strong voice in how funds are used to meet the needs of vulnerable youth.
JUSTICE SERVICES
Supported by case managers—who provide ongoing encouragement, crisis counseling, and referrals to services as well as education and career guidance—systems-involved young people break patterns of violence, meet probation requirements and court mandates, achieve stability, and reach personal educational and employment goals. Our program works: this year 90% of program participants did not re-offend within 12 months of our program.
In a unique partnership with the Juvenile Halls, Sunset Youth Services also brings its mobile recording studios into juvenile incarceration facilities to provide digital arts training. Music creates the draw, relationships build the bridge, and, upon release, employment opportunities and ongoing support help these young people to positively re-engage with their communities.