The mission of LEAD to develop the leadership skills of low income teens empowering them to address community problems and change the world. We accomplish this mission by training teens and then supporting them to take positions of real leadership.

LEAD believes that organizations that serve teens must have teens in decision making capacity. LEAD has teens on our staff, hiring committee, executive advisory committee and board of directors. This administrative policy translates into how the teens feel about their groups and the ownership they feel in the program.

Teens and adults co-lead the groups, help design the curriculum and set policy. It can be a time consuming process. However, at the end of that process, you have a product that is truly teen and adult created, and so the teen "buy-in" to the program is very strong.

LEAD is a "world change" organization. Our mission specifically addresses world change. By this we mean, that we acknowledge that we are working to interrupt sexism, racism, gay oppression, disability oppression, and others. LEAD believes that while there are differences among these social injustices, there are commonalities as well. LEAD sees young people as an oppressed group. Youth Oppression is "the systematic and pervasive mistreatment of young people by adults solely on the basis of their age. This includes both institutionalized or "normalized" mistreatment as well as instances of violence. It includes the invalidation, denial, and non recognition of the complete humanness (the goodness, uniqueness, intelligence, and powerfulness) of the youth" (adapted from Ricky Sherover-Marcuse. 1988. Liberation Theory: A Working Framework).

LEAD believes that when an organization is working with an oppressed group, like young people, that there must be people from the targeted group in leadership in that organization. To understand and eliminate the difficulties of oppression must include the thinking and perspectives of the people who are experiencing it. Young people have the abilities and intelligence to contribute to their society. This is a fundamental principle of LEAD.