YAASPA was established in 2010 based upon Dr. Mackey and her husband's, co-founder,  academic and career experiences (learn more here). Being born and raised in Colorado and Black race scholar activist, Dr. Mackey came to learn about the challenges youth face in navigating their academic and career development in the social sciences amidst the Colorado Paradox. The Colorado Paradox is the phenomena that only 25% of 9th graders will earn a college degree and many are in need of remediation. In light of this, there have been career pathways created in order to build youth’s self-efficacy in business, fine arts, health sciences, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Many of the decisions to create these career pathways have been from a top- down approach and simply based upon the labor market. Consequently, there have been few endeavors to cultivate the self-efficacy for youth who desire to pursue a social justice career. Hence, to pursue degrees and careers in the social sciences. This is a gap that YAASPA mitigates via community organizing, advocacy and our programs which are: a course entitled civic engagement in community and career, scholarship fairs, social sciences and policy institutes and a new partnership with Community College of Aurora to award students a two-year scholarship who are interested in pursuing social science degrees. YAASPA also partners with organizations collaboratively to facilitate education advocacy to increase social equity. With the YAASPA experience, youth are cultivated to:

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• Increase academic and career self-efficacy

• Increase self-awareness of racial identity development

• Increase civic literacy

• Increase civic engagement

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In doing this, we are able to fulfill our motto to support our youth to “redefine the standards to pull down the barriers” they may face in becoming civically engaged in community and career. We know our model works based upon research and the youth themselves. Research indicates that youth of color must better understand their identities in order to build their confidence in academic and career decisions. It is critical that youth are not solely prescribed academic and career opportunities, but that they are the co-authors and creators in the process. Per social cognitive career theory, youth are likely to gravitate toward what they see within their communities. Thus, YAASPA endeavors to mitigate the sociopolitical culture within Colorado that perpetuates the Colorado Paradox. The Colorado Paradox is perpetuated through neoliberal, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and labor market driven policy and mindsets which erases the importance of acknowledging the intersectionality of youth’s identities at play within academic and career development. Thus, the systems that we are attempting to address, and redress are not only institutional, but also psychological. YAASPA has created programming to cultivate youth’s creative genius to create and engage in career pathways that will breakdown neoliberal, racist systems within our communities and build bridges between marginalized communities.