Pueblo program expands with app to promote healthy activities, tackle youth delinquency

A Pueblo program has launched an app to bolster its efforts to promote healthy activities and prevent substance use, delinquency and violence among the city’s youth.

Southern Colorado Youth Go, or SoCoYoGo, now has a free phone application where Puebloans ages 13 to 18 can net redeemable rewards by visiting different locations around Pueblo. The intent is to get those teens to engage in healthy, prosocial activities and decrease barriers that prevent them from doing so.

SoCoYoGo first launched in April 2022. It’s modeled after Denver’s My Denver Card program, which offers free access to recreational centers and other facilities to the area’s youth. Before the app, users scanned QR codes to access a website where they could learn about the locations and rewards.

The app, designed by Digital Hart Media, operates similarly to the website. After users download it, they can collect digital seeds by visiting partner locations that have a QR code. Once a user collects enough seeds, those rewards convert to money that they can spend at one of the more than 60 business locations that participate in the program.

The program’s backers are hopeful and confident the app will streamline access for teens who want to participate, particularly since it’s more likely that they’ll engage with an app than a website.

“The justice system uses prosocial engagement as one of the measures when they’re trying to determine whether or not a youth offender will reoffend. That’s something that public defenders bring up a lot,” said Riya Singh, a youth advisor for the program. “So just having a concrete platform that encourages you to engage in prosocial activities is good for that and decreases the likelihood of repeat offenses.”

Singh, a Pueblo West High School senior, is one of several local teens involved with the youth action board where SoCoYoGo originated. The board is one of many branches under the Communities That Care coalition at the Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment.

The Pueblo CTC, billed as a prevention-planning system, is a “way for members of a community to work together to promote positive youth development and prevent youth problem behaviors such as substance abuse and violence,” according to its website.

It also seeks to “reduce problem behaviors” and promote positive ones.

“One of the priorities for the health department has always been the mental and physical health of young people and all Puebloans,” said Trysten Garcia, public information officer for PDPHE. “This serves our mission in its entirety — to help promote and protect the health of everybody in our community. We couldn’t be more excited for the growth the program’s experienced.”

SoCoYoGo’s website saw an influx of visitors when it launched, amassing nearly 50 accounts in the first few months, according to data from PDPHE. That number jumped to 163 after its first full year.

The data also show that as of February 2024, 193 accounts had been created on the platform. The prosocial locations have been visited by users nearly 100 times since the program started.

Singh and Sarah Martinez, a health promotion specialist for the program and city councilor, expect to see those numbers increase now that there’s an app. They plan to promote SoCoYoGo and the app at Blo Back Gallery on April 25. The event will feature giveaways, activities, food trucks and more to engage youth and their parents about the app.

Martinez, who was born and raised in Pueblo, believes SoCoYoGo and its new app can help challenge a long-held belief among Pueblo’s youth — that there aren't enough things to do in the city for younger Puebloans.

“I think that this is really going to showcase all of the great, positive things Pueblo has to do to engage our young people in a really, healthy and prosocial way,” Martinez said. “I’m really excited about it. Given that we have close to 200 accounts already, I think it shows that young people are excited about it as well.”

Martinez also mentioned how the program and its ideas were developed by Pueblo youth for the same audience. That perhaps is one of the more critical aspects of the platform at a time when juvenile violence in Pueblo has increased as of late, according to the Pueblo Police Department.

Singh said she and her fellow youth advisors have had considerable say in how they want the app to look or what it could adopt to better appeal to younger audiences. The program's QR codes are hard to miss and are stationed at several schools across Pueblo School District 60 and Pueblo County School District 70.

The codes are also at other notable city locations, such as the Pueblo Riverwalk, Mineral Palace Park and public libraries, among others. Businesses that participate in the program have provided “positive” feedback, Singh said. Martinez added that she “really appreciated” how those locations stepped up to support Pueblo’s youth.

“We have a large young population and people are always looking for something to do,” Singh said. “When you have activities like this that are encouraging people to engage in healthy behaviors that push them away from other risk-taking behaviors that can lead them into this loop — I just think this platform is exactly what our community needs.”

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Chieftain reporter Josué Perez can be reached at JHPerez@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @josuepwrites. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo program adds app in effort to engage the city's youth