Youth Documentary Academy: The Origin Story
Tom Shepard, founder of Youth Documentary Academy (YDA), grew up in Colorado Springs during a time when very few opportunities existed for young people interested in filmmaking. Determined to pursue the craft, he attended film school in the Bay Area before beginning a career with a production company, where he spent more than twenty years. During that time, he experienced firsthand the power of mentorship, first as a young filmmaker and later as someone supporting emerging talent. He came to believe that this same model could have an even greater impact in documentary filmmaking.
After several decades, family needs brought Tom back to Colorado. As he reconnected with the local arts community, conversations kept returning to the same challenge: While aspiring filmmakers on the East and West Coasts had access to top-tier film schools and professional networks, those opportunities simply didn't exist in Colorado. Seeing this gap, Tom co-founded the Youth Documentary Academy (YDA) alongside two fellow filmmakers in 2014 with a simple goal: to give young people access to professional filmmaking equipment, experienced mentors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to tell their own stories.
Since then, YDA has welcomed 12 students each summer into an intensive eight- to-ten-week documentary filmmaking program, helping young filmmakers produce more than 150 films over the last 12 years. Students don't need previous filmmaking experience to apply—only a willingness to tell their own stories. More than half of the participants each year identify as BIPOC, 33% identify as LGBTQ+, and throughout every stage of the process, young people drive the conversation.
When YDA first launched, Tom and his co-founders knew they wanted to work with young people, even though they had very little experience as teachers. During the program's first year, one high school student created a documentary about his relationship with his father and how it changed after his father returned from deployment in the Iraq War. While he had not yet fully processed those experiences, creating the documentary gave him a way to make sense of them, transforming memories once rooted in shame into a source of empowerment. Both of his parents agreed to participate in the film, and the process became a space where the family could have courageous conversations and express emotions they had never been able to share before.
That experience fundamentally shaped YDA's approach. Tom and his colleagues quickly began bringing in social workers and therapists to support students as they navigated deeply personal stories. One social worker described what YDA was doing as a form of "Narrative Therapy"—helping young people move traumatic experiences from the limbic system to the storytelling brain, allowing them to reclaim those experiences and tell their stories on their own terms. Rather than being defined by painful moments, students could become authors—and even ambassadors—of their own experiences.
As the program matured, others began taking notice. Six to seven years after its founding, YDA students were regularly submitting their films to festivals, and the organization was invited to produce a curated television series for Rocky Mountain PBS. Soon afterward, American Public Television (APT) partnered with YDA to distribute the series nationally across the PBS system. The series, Our Time, reached the top 25% of the PBS market. Each 27-minute episode pairs two student documentary films exploring a shared theme, followed by interviews with the young filmmakers.
Like so many organizations, YDA pivoted when the COVID-19 pandemic brought in-person programming to a halt. At the same time, another crisis was unfolding: a sharp decline in young people's mental, social, and emotional well-being. Recognizing the role storytelling could play in supporting youth, Cass Walton, Executive Director of the Suicide Prevention Partnership (SPP), approached Tom about creating a partnership that connected teens with mental health resources through filmmaking.
That collaboration led to a traveling workshop for high schools and, ultimately, the creation of Youth Media Matters, a youth-led film festival centered on mental health. Students created films exploring topics that mattered to them and participated in post-screening Q&A panels. Community mental health organizations, medical providers, and hospitals joined the event to offer resources on topics ranging from domestic violence to eating disorders. When Youth Media Matters launched in 2021, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Pre- and post-event surveys showed that many students related deeply to the stories they saw on screen and left feeling more encouraged to seek mental health support. After years of focusing primarily on filmmaking, YDA had discovered that storytelling could also serve as a powerful gateway to healing, community, and mental health advocacy.
Today, YDA is in its thirteenth year of programming, and the organization's focus has shifted from simply building a successful local program to asking how its model can grow without losing what makes it special. Through its partnership with EMA and the Community of Learners, YDA is exploring what it would look like to deepen relationships with teachers and mentors while expanding programs like Youth Media Matters into additional schools.
Following the first festival, many teachers described the experience as providing both "windows and mirrors." The films offered students windows into the lives of peers whose experiences differed from their own, while also serving as mirrors that reflected their own stories back to them, reminding them they were not alone. At a time when many educators are searching for meaningful ways to respond to the growing youth mental health crisis, Youth Media Matters has become more than a film festival—it is a space where young people can tell their stories, connect with one another, and access support. Through its partnership with EMA and its Purpose Storytelling Collaborative, YDA hopes to bring that experience to even more communities.
