Former Casey Youth Council Member Amiyah Davis Receives U.S. Presidential Appointment

Pres­i­dent Biden has appoint­ed Amiyah Davis, a for­mer mem­ber of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s youth coun­cil, to the fed­er­al Coor­di­nat­ing Coun­cil on Juve­nile Jus­tice and Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion. Through the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice, the coun­cil advis­es the pres­i­dent and Con­gress on how fed­er­al juve­nile jus­tice pro­grams and oth­er fed­er­al pro­grams and activ­i­ties can be coor­di­nat­ed to bet­ter serve young people.

Davis is an advo­cate for youth in the juve­nile jus­tice and child wel­fare sys­tems. In its nom­i­na­tion announce­ment, the White House said of her: “[Davis] is blaz­ing a path to impact pol­i­cy change and the expe­ri­ences of youth for gen­er­a­tions to come, push­ing youth-serv­ing pro­fes­sion­als to enhance their com­mu­ni­ty-based efforts that pre­vent youth from sys­tem con­tact altogether.”

“This is a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to ensure that mean­ing­ful and authen­tic youth part­ner­ship is a core prin­ci­ple dri­ving fed­er­al juve­nile jus­tice pol­i­cy and prac­tice,” says Davis, who as a teenag­er had direct expe­ri­ence with the juve­nile jus­tice and child wel­fare sys­tems. ​“In my capac­i­ty as a coun­cil mem­ber, I look for­ward to bring­ing my phi­los­o­phy of ​‘Noth­ing about us, with­out us’ to the table.”

Davis began con­sult­ing with the Casey Foun­da­tion in 2018 as part of its Juve­nile Jus­tice Youth Advi­so­ry Coun­cil. Her work with the Foun­da­tion built on the youth jus­tice reform efforts she had pre­vi­ous­ly pur­sued. Work­ing with the youth coun­cil exposed Davis to reform-ori­ent­ed ini­tia­tives across the coun­try and opened doors for her to present at nation­al and state conferences.

Her cur­rent role at the Cen­ter for Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform at George­town Uni­ver­si­ty grew out of a Foun­da­tion grant to enable young pro­fes­sion­als affect­ed by the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem to gain mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ence in the field while being com­pen­sat­ed at a com­pet­i­tive rate.

“Amiyah will strength­en the coor­di­nat­ing coun­cil with her thought­ful­ness about and pas­sion for juve­nile jus­tice reform,” says Nate Balis, direc­tor of the Foundation’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group. ​“Amiyah has shown us time and again the wis­dom and per­spec­tive gained from her expe­ri­ence as well as her deep insights into how to trans­form juve­nile jus­tice and child wel­fare systems.”

Learn about anoth­er for­mer mem­ber of Casey’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Youth Advi­so­ry Council