Highlights from C4Y Blaine's 2025-2026 Academic Year

Communities for Youth (C4Y) Blaine County had a great school year!

As a C4Y Regional Initiative (we’re currently in our third year!), we had a number of successes as well as lessons learned when it came to building the best community for our young people. 

2025-2026 Blaine County Youth Well-being Survey

This year, 1,458 middle and high school students from every public, charter, and private school participated in the Idaho Youth Well-being Survey for Blaine County. This round of surveys captured 70% of all middle- and high-school-aged youth in Blaine County. 

For the year, C4Y Blaine’s efforts have focused on two areas:

Community Connection: Building stronger bonds between youth and the places they live, learn, and play.

Self-Awareness: Equipping young people with the tools to understand their emotions, strengths, and identity.

Blaine County's 2026 Community Focus Areas.

These focus areas were decided on by members of our community in response to Blaine students’ responses on the Idaho Youth Well-being Survey. Community-wide survey data from participating schools is available on the C4Y Blaine County Data Page.

Key Successes

Some of the key successes to build self-awareness, connection, and well-being across Blaine County  included: 

• Launching the Blaine County Well-Being Ambassador program

• Conducting in-depth focus groups with middle and high school students and staff 

• Blaine County School District staff participated in a variety of professional development opportunities around improving student well-being.

Blaine County Well-Being Ambassadors gather at a community dinner

Our Coalition, Partnerships & Community Engagement

Additionally, one of the key partners in C4Y Blaine County underwent a major transformation this year. The Mental Well-Being Initiative (MWBI) (home to  ½ of the C4Y Blaine County Community Lead team, Kirsten Emerson) officially rebranded to TogetherWe and became their own 501.c.3 organization.

TogetherWe has also recently launched a new community platform to encourage deeper involvement and connection among all Blaine County community members, which we encourage all partners to check out.

C4Y Blaine County is so proud of what we have accomplished this year. As we continue the work to move upstream for youth well-being, we invite new and existing partners to stay up to date and be part of the work ahead.

To learn more about the initiative or for ways to get involved, please reach out to Community Leads, Kirstin Emerson at kirstin@togetherwe5b.org or Sara Seppa at seppas@slhs.org.