Looking at Santa Barbara County’s probation routine for formerly incarcerated youth with a fresh pair of eyes, Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley is also providing those juvenile offenders with a new face.
“I believe, and research shows, that young people thrive when they have adults who care about them in their lives. So, getting another person into a young person’s life regularly, to listen to their needs, is always a good thing,” Edwin Weaver, executive director of the nonprofit, told the Sun.
A recent contract boost from the county positioned Fighting Back to expand some of the region-wide programs it’s provided since 2020 and to take the reins on others. The nonprofit has served the Santa Maria Valley since 2003.
One of the new programs it will take over is the county’s youth gang intervention program, which the Probation Department launched in 2021.
Between then and 2025, local probation officers hosted weekly sessions using a curriculum designed by Florida-based nonprofit ARISE Foundation. The aim was to educate youth sentenced to supervised probation about the real-world repercussions of being in a gang, using written testimonies from dozens of former gang members.
“Gang life meets a need. When you’re a young person and you join a gang, you’re meeting an unmet need. Whether it’s of community, of friendship, of belonging, of physical safety, of care—sometimes you feel cared for,” Weaver said. “So, ARISE is really to pull the mask off of that and reveal that, really, it’s an illegal enterprise to make people some money. And the needs that you’re looking to get met are better met by other things in this world. … It really focuses on reframing what gang life is.”
In a recent pitch to the county Board of Supervisors, the county Probation Department proposed that Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley step in to oversee the ARISE program moving forward. Probation believes it would be more beneficial for youth to learn from an adult mentor who doesn’t also happen to be their probation supervisor.
“The role of the deputy probation officer in supervising youth is different than that of a Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley youth programming specialist, who may engage with youth in a more therapeutic manner [that could] elicit greater youth transparency and participation,” Probation Department Manager Erin Cross told the Sun via email. “It was believed transitioning the delivery of ARISE to Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley would allow youth to achieve maximum benefit from that program.”
Fighting Back Executive Director Weaver described the shift, approved by the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 27, as an intuitive approach.
“Sometimes probation officers have to deliver really hard, bad news. … But, here at Fighting Back, we’re Switzerland,” Weaver said. “We’re not the one disciplining them, like a judge or probation officer.”
ARISE developed its youth gang prevention program about 10 years ago, “in direct response to the needs we were hearing from professionals working with at-risk youth,” co-founder Susan Benson told the Sun in an email interview.
“Many of the agencies and facilities already using the ARISE life skills curriculum approached us and asked if we could create a focused program specifically for youth who were at risk of joining gangs or who were already being influenced by gang culture,” recalled Benson, who co-founded ARISE in Florida in 1986.
Her organization designs educational tools and texts on various youth topics for juvenile justice entities across the country.
“One of the strengths of the ARISE curriculum, and especially the gang prevention program, is its flexibility,” she explained. “The lessons are not designed to be taught in a strict sequence. … This is especially important in settings where youth may only be present for a short period, such as detention centers or transitional programs. Even if a young person participates in just one session, they can still walk away with a skill or insight that may positively influence their choices.”
Some of the gang prevention program’s most impactful lessons, Benson believes, center on violence and conflict resolution and anger management.
“These areas are critical because unresolved anger and impulsive decision-making often play a major role in gang involvement,” she said. “Helping youth recognize triggers, understand consequences, and develop healthier ways to respond can change the trajectory of their lives.”
Facilitating the ARISE program marks Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley’s first time working with youth on supervised probation after serving a juvenile hall sentence. But staffers at the nonprofit—including its full-time restorative justice mediator—are no strangers to working with kids, teens, and young adults in their early 20s while they’re in custody.
“Our job is to prepare the young people for life after they get released,” Executive Director Weaver said. “You can imagine that if you did a crime when you were 15, and from ages 15 to 24 you’re incarcerated in the juvenile justice system—you’re not very prepared for life. … Our job is to get them ready.”
When Weaver joined Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley in 2014, the nonprofit employed a total of seven full-time staff.
“Now there’s 52 of us over here,” he said. “We grew quite a bit.”
Along with funding the group’s new role leading ARISE and other evidence-based mentorship services for youth on probation, the recent contract increase from the county will fund the hiring of two new full-time youth program specialists.
The new agreement extends Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley’s 2025-26 contract, for about $1 million, by a year and includes extra funds to support staff and service increases. The updated contract lists the nonprofit’s county funding as $1.17 million for the 2026-27 fiscal year. Combining last year’s budget with this year’s puts the 2025-27 fiscal year total at $2.19 million.
Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley also relies on donations from the public to continue expanding its services, which include two new scholarships the nonprofit is introducing this year, and one milestone project it’s been working on for the past three years.
“We’re building a one-stop shop for homeless 18-to-24-year-olds,” Weaver said about the group’s upcoming Navigation Center for Transitional Youth on East Chapel Street in Santa Maria. “They can come in and get mental health services, counseling. They can do laundry, they can take a shower, store their things, get their paperwork ready for housing, and get housing navigation services.
“We hope to open that up in March,” he added. “We’re just about ready to open.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in February 5 – February 12, 2026.