Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/author/stellsimonton/page/2/)
Garry Powers stands on Alameda Street near the North Vignes Street overpass, across from a smoke shop and a Vietnamese restaurant. He’s on the edge of Chinatown and a couple of miles north of Boyle Heights, a neighborhood once rife with gangs.
PALM SPRINGS, California — At the end of April, Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Institute opened a striking museum and a memorial to 4,400 victims of lynching in the United States.
In a replay of last year, President Donald Trump proposed scrapping the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative, the federal funding for after-school and summer learning that reaches 1.7 million children.
Children and youth could see some gains under a bill that passed Congress early this morning, funding the government through March 23. The bill raises caps on domestic and military spending by about $300 billion and allots money for disaster relief and the opioid epidemic.
As an undocumented student, David Blancas had to push hard to shape his future.
He couldn’t drive without fear of being stopped. He couldn’t get on a plane without worrying about being detained.
Last month, a group of girls at a juvenile detention center in the Bronx sat in a discussion circle with a teaching artist and a social worker. After a series of circle meetings, the girls at Horizon Juvenile Center in New York City had created vision boards, collages in which they envisioned their life five years from now.
Twenty-two years ago, a retired juvenile court judge in San Francisco teamed up with a Native American healer to help kids get on a positive path and avoid juvenile court. This summer, the organization they created was among 18 groups that received grants from New York Life Insurance Company to help underserved middle school students reach ninth grade on time.
Panelists at a discussion on race spoke mostly about collective response to a president they fear will roll back the rights of people of color, as well as other groups.
“Start where you are,” said DeRay McKesson, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. “I didn’t get a call from Harriet Tubman to be an activist.”
OST programs can reach and engage the students who need extra support, not just those who happen to show up. Every young life starts out with promise, and the adults who love a child yearn for that child to have a bright future.
One of the starkest statistics in the lives of girls today is that 73 percent of girls in the juvenile justice system have been physically or sexually abused, according to U.S. Bureau of Justice figures.