Casey Names 12 to its Juvenile Justice Youth Advisory Council - The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Casey Names 12 to its Juvenile Justice Youth Advisory Council

Posted March 31, 2017
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Blog caseynames12 2017

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has select­ed 12 young adults from across the coun­try to join its Youth Advi­so­ry Council.

Dur­ing their two-year term, the new and return­ing mem­bers will sup­port Casey’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group, which part­ners with state and local stake­hold­ers and agen­cies to advance juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem reforms.

Read about the for­ma­tion of the Juve­nile Jus­tice Youth Advi­so­ry Group

All 12 indi­vid­u­als tapped to serve on the coun­cil have per­son­al expe­ri­ence with some aspect of the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, whether it’s pro­ba­tion, deten­tion, com­mit­ment, res­i­den­tial place­ment, incar­cer­a­tion or aftercare.

This first­hand per­spec­tive informs the mem­bers’ wide-rang­ing inter­ests, which include:

  • Stop­ping young peo­ple from get­ting trans­ferred into adult pris­ons and learn­ing to become bet­ter crim­i­nals instead of bet­ter citizens.”
  • Devel­op­ing train­ing for facil­i­ty staff to bet­ter under­stand the role of trau­ma in the lives of incar­cer­at­ed youth and see the ele­ment of human con­nec­tion restored in these ster­ile environments.”
  • Cre­at­ing age-appro­pri­ate pub­li­ca­tions, such as a graph­ic nov­el that advis­es youth about mak­ing the most of their time in pro­ba­tion and a guide that details how youth can get their juve­nile records expunged.

As emerg­ing lead­ers in jus­tice reform, the advi­so­ry coun­cil mem­bers have oppor­tu­ni­ties to impact the youth jus­tice land­scape beyond their coun­cil roles. They do this by speak­ing at forums, serv­ing on state advi­so­ry groups and par­tic­i­pat­ing in advo­ca­cy campaigns.

About the Youth Advi­so­ry Council

Casey launched the Youth Advi­so­ry Coun­cil in 2015. Today, in the wake of select­ing its sec­ond cohort of mem­bers, two of the council’s many ben­e­fits include:

  1. Help­ing youth devel­op their lead­er­ship and advo­ca­cy skills and learn more about the juve­nile jus­tice field. The young peo­ple rec­og­nize that they need exper­tise in more areas than just their lived expe­ri­ence to be the best pos­si­ble agents of change,” says Nate Balis, direc­tor of the Foundation’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group.
  2. Help­ing inform reform efforts. Young peo­ple are can­did about what works and what doesn’t,” says Balis. They’re also able to advise state and local juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems on gath­er­ing input from youth in their care, and they have cred­i­bil­i­ty as mes­sen­gers to pol­i­cy mak­ers and practitioners.”

Learn more about the Foundation’s juve­nile jus­tice work