Family Involvement

Wow. Earlier this week, I blogged about a great opportunity to help youth, family members, and leaders of color become more effective juvenile justice advocates.
Now, here's another chance to do the same thing, organized by our friends at the Campaign for Youth Justice. They'll be holding a Leadership Institute for Families in Baltimore, Maryland in May 25-27, 2010. The application is attached.
Here's what they say about it (with a few edits from me):

[UPDATE: According to the NJJN, the Institute must be postponed until 2011. If you want to participate -- or be involved in the planning -- email Annie Balck. - Ed.] 
Anyone who has worked in the juvenile justice knows how hard it is to recruit, organize, and train advocates from the community to implement juvenile justice reform. But we also know they're out there. 
Fortunately, the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) is here to help.
This summer, the NJJN is offering its first ever Juvenile Justice Leadership Development Institute. They want to

create the foundation for a more effective juvenile justice reform movement by developing a strong base of well prepared and well trained advocates and organizers who reflect the communities most affected by juvenile justice system practices and policies, with a particular focus on cultivating and supporting leaders of color, youth and family members.

The Institute will be held in New Orleans July 11-16, and will include a year of distance learning and being mentored.  Applications are due March 12, 2010. NJJN will pay transportation to and from New Orleans for those who get accepted to the program.

Last summer, the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) launched its National Parent Caucus to build leaders among those most affected by the juvenile justice system. Every month, it holds conference calls with parents and caregivers. They've reached over 100 families from all over the country.
Next spring, CFYJ will host a three-day gathering in Baltimore of emerging family leaders from the National Parent Caucus to share experiences and skill. (I'll keep you posted as I learn more.)
 
Can't wait that long? Then dial in to the Caucus' next conference call at 1.866.670.5105 and enter the code 448194#. Or pass the number on to a parent of a child in the justice system. All calls take place at 1 pm PST/ 4 pm EST.
 
Here's the 2010 conference call schedule:

[This topic of this column is so critical to reform of the juvenile justice system, we've reprinted it in its entirety from the Criminal Justice blog of Change.org with their kind permission. It originally appeared under the title, "Fixing the Information Mismatch in Juvenile Justice." --Ed.]
In 2007. I met a soft-spoken young man whom we will call “Ivan.” Almost everyday, he wore a large sweatshirt with cats and dogs on it. When I asked him if he liked animals, his face lit up and he told me that his dream was to become a veterinarian. He really loved taking care of animals, he said, and he was especially good with dogs. 
I knew Ivan because he was in the Bronx Family Court on a delinquency proceeding for allegedly throwing water on his teacher’s laptop at school. Ivan said it was an accident, although his teacher didn’t think so.
 
While awaiting a finding in his case, Ivan was successfully attending Saturday community service events, he was going to his counseling appointments, and he was present at school when his probation officer checked on him. Unfortunately, Ivan’s mom didn’t quite have her act together, so Ivan would find himself breaking up fights between her and her boyfriend, or taking care of her when she was too high to do it herself. Eventually, the court recognized that Ivan’s mom was not in a position to mother him as required by law. Without other family members or friends to take him in, Ivan was put into a juvenile jail to await the finding in his case.

There are rumblings throughout the country about racism right now. People are wondering what the implications of racism are, if it still exists, how much it affects and to what extent. These are the kinds of discussions we should be having as a nation. They are long overdue and the results of such discussions would be a welcome change to the silence and the ability of this country to ignore what is plain and evident. Yet it seems they're slow to begin and could go on for decades before we see any real change.
Now there are some in this country that can afford to wait as the discussion begins; on the other hand, those that are most affected by and involved in the juvenile and criminal justice systems do not have the luxury of waiting. We must take action today, at every opportunity in the future, and be prepared to create opportunities on the days when there are none!
We're lucky in that we have the facts that are indisputable to serve as the starting point for this work. Our country has an addiction to incarceration and based on the staggering statistics of that addiction, it's one we can no longer afford. Secondly, the criminal and juvenile justice systems are inundated with the appalling history of racism in the US. The focus of our discussion should be, "What are we going to do about it?"
 
If we assume we can no longer wait for the leaders in our field and in our communities to spearhead the work, then the answers we seek lie within us. Are you waiting for change to come or are you willing to roll up your sleeves and push for the change? If you were waiting for the right time, I believe we are there.

Know any kids in the juvenile justice system with parents who're interested in juvenile justice reform?
The Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) is hosting its National Parent Caucus call today, October 2nd, at 2pm EST / 11 am PST. Interested parties should call 1.866.670.5105 and enter the code 448194#.
 
The call will focus on ways you can spend an hour or less helping to "get the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act (JJDPA) moved out of committee and passed." The call wlil also provide a "brief training on wealth and power and what this has to do with us and our work."
 
Apologies for the late notice on this - but this is a great opportunity to involve parents in juvenile justice reform. (Photo by seychelles88.)

One of the drawbacks of juvenile court systems is that they often struggle when it comes to connecting kids to their own cultural values. Yet helping the youth and their families do so can tranform families and support teens in living crime-free and drug-free lives.
The Reclaiming Futures site in Santa Cruz saw the need for a culturally-rooted family-strengthening program years ago and adopted an 8-12-week curriculum called Cara y Corazón (literally, "face and heart"), developed by Jerry Tello. After hearing about it for years, I finally had the privilege of seeing Jaime Molina, ASW, Project Director and Community Fellow for the Santa Cruz site, and Joaquin Barreto, MCHS, present the curriculum at the Building Family Strengths conference held in Portland in June. (In the photo above, Jaime is on the left; Joaquin on the right.)

At The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA), we’ve been working for years to identify practical, realistic ways to keep kids drug-free. Why? Because a child who reaches age 21 without smoking, using illicit drugs or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so. In other words, sober children become sober adults. And we’ve found that the best chance kids have of reaching age 21 drug-free is engaged parents. Parents have the greatest impact on whether their children will smoke, drink or use drugs. 

My name's Greg Williams. I'm a young person who's been in long-term recovery since age 17 from alcohol and other drugs. Whenever I tell my story, I always say, “I was whoever I thought my friends wanted me to be.” Throughout my teenage years, my human need for belonging drove me to conform to peer groups around me.

The juvenile justice field has been one of the last to accept a strength-based or asset-based community development approach to working with young people and to working with communities to reduce juvenile crime.
However, based on pioneering work on a strength-based bill of rights for juvenile offenders developed by Laura Nissen, Executive Director of Reclaiming Futures and many other asset-based practitioners, the idea of a community development approach to juvenile justice has been slowly taking hold.