Urban Initiatives (UI) has been selected for a $75,000 national award from Young Futures recognizing bold, youth centered innovation at the intersection of artificial intelligence, social emotional learning (SEL), and mental health. This recognition affirms UI’s emerging leadership in helping young people navigate AI safely, critically, and with agency using sport, play, and youth voice as the foundation.
This moment signals more than a single grant. It marks UI’s entry into a national conversation about how technology, wellbeing, and youth development must evolve together.
Why This Matters Now
Artificial intelligence is already shaping how young people learn, relate, and understand themselves. For adolescents, especially those navigating stress, identity formation, and peer pressure, AI tools can amplify both opportunity and harm. Too often, young people are left to engage these technologies alone without guidance, emotional scaffolding, or trusted adults.
This recognition reflects a growing consensus: supporting youth in the age of AI is not just about digital literacy, it is about mental health, relationships, and agency.
UI was selected because its approach meets this moment head‑on: grounding AI exploration in play, movement, reflection, and belonging.
What Urban Initiatives Is Building
UI is developing Plugged In, a play‑based learning pathway that helps pre‑teens and teens understand how AI works and how it affects their emotions, relationships, and decision‑making.
At the core is a simple but powerful premise:
Young people should not just use AI. They should understand it, question it, and decide how it fits into their lives.
Rather than teaching technology in isolation, UI integrates AI concepts into teamwork, self‑management, communication, and reflection, ensuring youth build both technical awareness and emotional resilience.
The Model at a Glance
Inputs
- Play‑based SEL frameworks
- Youth voice and co‑design
- AI tools and real‑world examples
- Trained facilitators and safe learning spaces
Activities
- Guided AI exploration through games and challenges
- Movement‑based and team‑based learning
- Structured reflection on emotions, stress, and relationships
- Youth‑led design and peer facilitation
Outputs
- Youth‑created projects and prototypes
- Peer‑led workshops and showcases
- Facilitator toolkits and exportable curriculum
Short‑Term Outcomes
- Increased emotional awareness and self‑regulation
- Greater confidence using and questioning AI
- Stronger communication and collaboration skills
Long‑Term Outcomes
- Healthier digital habits
- Increased agency and critical thinking
- Stronger mental health and relational skills
What Youth Experience
In a typical session, youth might analyze sports performance data using AI tools, then pause to reflect:
- How does pressure feel when performance is measured?
- When is AI helpful, and when might it mislead?
- What does teamwork look like when data, emotions, and human judgment all matter?
Nothing builds connection, emotional understanding, and decision making power quite like sport and play guided by a great coach. These environments create real moments of pressure, collaboration, and reflection, where young people practice regulating emotions, making choices, and learning from others in real time. This is what UI brings to the AI and mental health space: a proven, relational approach that builds the human skills young people need to confront an uncertain future with confidence.
Through play, discussion, and movement, youth learn that AI is a tool, not a replacement for human connection, discernment, or care. This approach makes complex technology accessible, relational, and developmentally appropriate.
Why Urban Initiatives
UI brings more than two decades of experience using sport and play to support youth development at scale. UI’s work in high schools has demonstrated the power of combining skill‑building with belonging, persistence, and voice.
This national recognition reflects UI’s ability to translate complex concepts into engaging, play based experiences, center youth voice in design and leadership, address mental health proactively, and build models that are rigorous, relational, and grounded in real world practice.
About the Award
This award was granted by Young Futures, a national organization focused on helping young people navigate technology in ways that strengthen wellbeing, relationships, and agency.
UI was selected as part of a competitive national funding challenge designed to surface and support innovative approaches that respond to how AI is shaping young people’s emotional lives, identities, and relationships.
UI was recognized specifically for its emphasis on mental health, youth powered design, and practical implementation, positioning the organization as a leader beyond traditional education or technology spaces.
What Comes Next
With this support, Urban Initiatives will:
- Launch pilot programming with youth co designers
- Test and refine play based AI and mental health curricula
- Generate insights for educators, caregivers, and youth serving organizations
- Prepare the model for broader adoption and partnership
UI is also grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Young Futures Academy alongside leaders across the country who are innovatively developing solutions to support youth in building AI fluency and agency.
“Urban Initiatives is known for sport and play, and this recognition reflects something deeper. As AI becomes part of everyday life, young people need spaces that strengthen what makes us human.
By returning to our core of play and relationships, we are helping youth build agency, emotional skills, and confidence alongside emerging technology. Being seen by tech leaders for this impact affirms what those closest to the work have long known: play based, relational learning builds the foundation young people need to thrive and opens new opportunities for transformational collaboration.”
– Julie Chelovich Perconte, Chief Operating Officer of Urban Initiatives and delegate to the Young Futures Academy
This moment marks the beginning of a new chapter, one where sport, play, AI, and mental health come together to help young people thrive.
About Urban Initiatives
Urban Initiatives uses the power of sport and play to empower Chicago’s youth to achieve academic success, develop social‑emotional skills, and build social capital. Serving more than 100,000 young people annually, UI designs experiences that help youth grow as learners, leaders, and teammates on and off the field.
