Services - Preventive

Youth Leadership Project

s children enter adolescence, the negative impact of family incarceration and separation often becomes more pronounced as teenagers begin to act out some of their feelings of sadness and anger. Adolescent children of prisoners were found to have higher rates of conduct disorders, school suspensions and involvement with the criminal justice system.

We target youths ages 13 through 17 and use a positive youth development framework which defines youth as having assets to be developed and not as problems to be solved. We offer weekly workshops three nights a week on topics like healthy male development, identifying leadership characteristics, learning money management skills, and planning for college and career. Additionally, they are offered a supervised after school environment at our offices where they can experience a sense of belonging by developing positive peer connections and where they receive academic support through tutoring and a computer-learning center.

Some of our programs highlights have included a trip to Philadelphia to train Youth Services Incorporated about the impact of incarceration on children, a youth panel presenting to the Child Welfare League of America, one of our youth being selected on an international childrens rights prize jury and having our youth made film screened in the Los Angeles youth film festival. We currently serve 45 youth a year.