More than a program
There is more than one way to find your thing.
One young person may come to us because they love science. Another may have questions they have not felt comfortable asking anywhere else.
Someone else may already know they want to become a nurse, work in medicine, design technology, or help make their community healthier. There is room for all of that here.
HMC brings health education, mentoring, STEAM, leadership, career exploration, and service together in ways that give young people room to learn, ask questions, try something new, and discover what matters to them.
Health and Wellness
Helping young people understand their bodies, emotions, health, and the everyday choices that support their well-being.
Healthy Choices and Prevention
Building knowledge and skills around decision-making, peer influence, healthy coping, substance awareness, and knowing when and how to seek support.
Connection and Mentoring
Creating meaningful relationships with adults and peers who listen, encourage, challenge, and show up consistently.
STEAM and Discovery
Giving young people opportunities to explore science, technology, engineering, creativity, innovation, and real-world problem solving.
Future Health Leaders
Introducing young people to the many ways they can contribute to healthcare, from nursing and medicine to allied health, community health, behavioral health, and health technology.
Leadership and Pathways
Helping young people build confidence, communication, teamwork, empathy, and leadership while creating opportunities for service, civic engagement, career exploration, and continued learning.
We come with a plan
We leave room for the conversation.
Every HMC experience has a purpose. But young people are not worksheets.
They bring their own questions, experiences, interests, and ideas into the room. Sometimes those things take the conversation somewhere we did not expect. That is not a distraction from the work. It is part of the work.
We listen for what young people are telling us, then build from there.
A conversation about stress can become a conversation about healthy coping. A question about vaping can become an opportunity to talk about the body, pressure, curiosity, and choices. An interest in nursing can open the door to an entire world of healthcare careers. A young person's idea can become a service project, a leadership opportunity, or the first step toward a future they had not imagined before.
The structure is ours. The future belongs to them.
In practice
Listening to students, building toward their futures.
Through a partnership with the 107th Street Elementary afterschool enrichment and mentoring program, HMC worked with a small girls cohort around health, wellness, personal growth, and future possibilities.
During mentoring conversations, students shared questions and experiences related to alcohol, vaping, and substances they had encountered. Rather than responding with shame or judgment, HMC used the opportunity to provide age-appropriate guidance around healthy decision-making, understanding what substances can do to the body, responding to curiosity and peer pressure, healthy coping, and identifying trusted adults.
But another powerful theme emerged.
Seven of the eight students in the cohort shared an interest in pursuing careers in nursing, medicine, or allied health.
HMC connected the conversation about health today with the futures students said they wanted to build. Students were introduced to the many roles that make up the healthcare workforce, from nurses and medical professionals to allied health, community health, behavioral health, and healthcare technology. They explored the skills and habits that can help them begin building toward those goals now.
What students explored
Healthy choices
Understanding how everyday decisions can affect the body and brain.
Vaping, alcohol and substance awareness
Age-appropriate conversations focused on curiosity, safety, peer pressure, trusted adults, and making informed choices.
Healthy coping
Exploring positive ways to respond to stress, difficult emotions, and challenging situations.
Healthcare careers
Discovering opportunities in nursing, medicine, allied health, community health, behavioral health, and health technology.
My future in health
Connecting students' interests and goals with steps they can begin taking today.
The approach. Listen first. Meet students where they are. Build on what matters to them. Help them see where they can go.
Every question can lead somewhere
Six ways in, and they intersect.
The 107th Street experience is one example of how HMC's youth work brings different areas of learning together around the interests and aspirations of the young people in the room.
Health and Wellness
Explore the body, emotions, movement, nutrition, mental health, and the foundations of well-being.
Healthy Choices and Prevention
Build the skills to navigate curiosity, pressure, and everyday decisions while knowing when asking for help is the right choice.
Future Health Leaders
Meet the people and professions shaping healthcare and discover where your interests could take you.
STEAM and Discovery
Experiment. Build. Investigate. Solve problems. See what happens when curiosity has somewhere to go.
Leadership and Life Skills
Build communication, confidence, empathy, teamwork, problem-solving, decision-making, and goal-setting skills.
Pathways and Service
Move from exploration into service, civic engagement, peer leadership, volunteering, career exploration, and deeper learning opportunities.
Not every student starts in the same place
And they do not have to.
One cohort may be excited about healthcare. Another may be drawn to engineering. Another may need a place to build confidence, ask questions, or figure out what comes next.
HMC's youth programming is designed to meet young people where they are while giving them room to discover where they want to go. The tracks are not separate boxes. They intersect.
A STEAM experience can spark a career interest. A mentoring conversation can uncover a health concern. A health lesson can lead to a conversation about nursing. A service project can become a leadership opportunity.
And a young person who once said, "I don't know," can eventually begin saying:
"Maybe I could."
Cohort-based experiences
Built around the group in the room.
Some groups benefit from a more focused experience built around shared interests, goals, age, or community context.
HMC can develop cohort-based mentoring and enrichment experiences that bring together the right combination of health education, mentoring, leadership, career exploration, STEAM, and service.
Featured cohort
107th Street Girls Cohort
Health, healthy choices and future health careers. The cohort became an opportunity to connect conversations about health and healthy decision-making with students' growing interest in healthcare careers.
The goal is not to tell young people who to become. It is to help them see more of what they could become.
Our school-based home
HMC's school-based work has a home.
Through our ongoing partnership with Ingenium Schools, HMC provides a consistent presence where students and families can continue to encounter health education, wellness, mentoring, enrichment, community connection, and service opportunities throughout the school year.
Our work continues through the 2026 to 2027 school year, creating something that a single workshop cannot. Continuity.
A student does not have to wonder whether they will see us again. A mentor can get to know a student over time. A conversation can continue. An interest can become a goal. A goal can become a next step.
Showing up once can start something. Showing up consistently gives it somewhere to grow.
Where we have had the chance to show up
Schools and youth-serving organizations across LA.
Creating opportunities for young people to learn, explore, lead, and connect.
Afterschool enrichment and mentoring
107th Street Elementary School
- Health and wellness
- Healthy choices
- Mentoring
- Future health careers
Afterschool enrichment and mentoring
Edwin Markham Middle School
- Youth development
- Mentoring
- Enrichment
Science and engineering design fair
Morningside High School
- STEAM
- Innovation
- Problem-solving
- Career exposure
Enrichment, mentoring and leadership
Youth camps and community programs
- Taking youth development beyond the school day and into the community
The path does not end when the program does
A young person who discovers an interest should have somewhere to take it.
For students who want to keep going, HMC creates opportunities to move from exploration into deeper learning and experience.
Discover a profession. Find a subject you love. Ask questions.
Build knowledge through HMC Academy courses, mentoring, and guided experiences.
Put learning into practice through volunteering, community service, and real-world experiences.
Support peers. Facilitate. Advocate. Build something. Become the person who helps someone else see what is possible.
One experience can open a door. We want young people to know where the next doors are.
Young people do not need us to decide their future. They need us to help them see it.
We do not know which one is sitting in the room yet. That is why we show up.
Bring HMC to your students
Tell us where you are starting. We will help you imagine what is possible.
Whether you are building an afterschool enrichment program, looking for a recurring mentoring partner, creating a health and wellness initiative, or helping students explore future careers, HMC can create an experience around your students and your school community.
Campus
Grade levels and student population.
Need
What you want students to explore, understand, or experience.
Format
A single experience, recurring sessions, cohort, enrichment series, or school-year partnership.
Timing
The semester, school year, or timeframe you are planning around.
A young person's future does not begin when they graduate. It begins the moment they realize they have one.
Youth and Future Health Leaders. Helping young people build healthy lives, explore what is possible, and see themselves in the future of health.