Transcript Call to Action: Message to the 81st TX Legislature

Coming Together to Dismantle
the Cradle to Prison Pipeline
in Massachusetts
A Half Day Summit of CommunityFaith and Policy Leaders
Recommendations from Small Group
Strategy Sessions
Group 1: End Child
Poverty
End Child Poverty
Goals
Form a multi-sector coalition (for increased
communication & goal awareness among all
organizations) which would work to increase focus on
poverty and recidivism prevention in the following
areas:
A. CORI reform
B. Stakeholder (including funders) knowledge
of poverty issues, effects, and treatment by
outsiders
C. Response to mental health care issues
D. Access to equitable resources
E. Increase education efforts about available
resources and programs to improve life
circumstances for the poor
End Child Poverty
Resources
Utilize local universities and students for:
A. Tutoring
B. Mentoring
C. Advocating for the students they work with
Develop programs with local law enforcement to educate
offenders (especially juvenile) of the resources available
Increase grass roots efforts to work with government
organizations, foundations, and non-profits to increase
advocacy for the poor. (Keep the pressure to change on
those who can make it happen)
End Child Poverty
Action
• Recommendations for action
Train students in health, education, criminal justice, etc. programs
on cultural sensitivity to socioeconomic diversity
Advocate for simplifying and streamlining public assistance
requirements and process
Mandate meeting health care needs when dismissed from prison,
e.g. providing meds till they can be supplied by MassHealth
Inmate education programs:
A. health care available
B. financial incentives for employers hiring persons out of
prison
C. bond insurance available to employers hiring persons
out of prison
Group 2: End Child
Poverty
End Child Poverty
Goals
I:
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Economic / Job related
Creation of more jobs
Shorten the work week
Support small businesses in local communities
Forming economic cooperatives
Housing
II: Education / Child and Human Development related
• Early childhood intervention/parenting
• Addressing/healing psychological trauma
III: Legal System related
• CORI Reform
End Child Poverty
Resources
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Economic / Job related
Workers organizing/labor relations
Internships
CORI –friendly jobs
Using membership dues (via jobs held) and retirement funds to
serve Massachusetts communities
II. Education / Child and Human Development
• Training – home ownership/understanding finances, media and
technology
• Leadership opportunities
• Connections to elite institutions/universities
• Partnerships with schools
End Child Poverty
Resources
III. Legal System related
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Housing to be secured
Legal Reform
Voters/citizens to contact legislators
Alternate interventions through programs addressing young drug
users, etc…
• Transportation safety (i.e. mbta travel)
End Child Poverty
Actions
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Follow up sessions –sharing info
Relationships
Commitment to a specific project
Create venues for more youth and parents involved in
ongoing conversations
Group 3: End Child
Poverty
End Child Poverty
Goals
• We focused on education of the child and family as the
avenue to reduce childhood poverty.
– Instill hope, dreams and a vision in families and
children; fight learned helplessness. A special
emphasis on men and fathers.
– Change the mindset of teachers and those working
with kids -- teachers and counselors need higher
expectations for kids, need to build them up.
– Increase quality communication within families and
between the community
End Child Poverty
Resources
• People here
• Best practices within organizations represented in this
room
End Child Poverty
Actions
• Bringing together a coalition of different people -increased communication between agencies and people
in the community.
• Use and collect stories -- need to communicate these
issues through compelling narratives
• Build relationships and relationship-building skills focus on one-to-one conversations, link people to
each other
• Linking people that are here
Group 4: Ensure
Health and Mental
Health Coverage for
Every Child
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Goals
• Create education services for families on how to
access services: use cards, find a provider
– must be geographically accessible, nonintimidating
– linked with local entities
• Increase role of community based health
services & school based health centers
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Resources
• Role Models for Healthy Behavior
– Students in schools of higher ed
– Peers at school
– Health and Mental Health Providers
Example: Healthy Families
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Actions
• Reform anti-bullying legislation to be treatment-oriented
and not focused on criminalizing children
• Increase incentives to work with local community entities
• Ensure culturally competent providers who are familiar
with the community
Group 5: Ensure
Health and Mental
Health Coverage for
Every Child
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Access Barriers
• Cultural/linguistic barriers to family seeking help from
mainstream health care resources
• Parental knowledge/choice about interventions
– Lack of trust and/or misinformation
– Afraid to advocate/hidden risks (living situation,
undocumented, domestic violence, etc.)
• Economic barriers (lose work/job, no transportation,
no co-pay $)
• Program staff/teachers/primary care clinicians lack
recognition skills for mental health needs
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Goals
• Increase general level of symptom
recognition and mental health awareness
• Youth and family public policy reforms
• Increase access to prevention activities
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Resources
• Mayor’s office (e.g. Boston)
• Faith community
• Youth serving agencies/schools/preschools
• Mental health and primary care providers
• Family members/advocates
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Actions
• Launch child mental health awareness campaigns for
– Family members/caregivers
– Health care providers
– Teachers
– Agency staff (i.e. juvenile justice)
• Target judges and probation officers to divert youth to
MH vs. JJ programs
• Facilitate and monitor presence of links to PCP’s
within JJ
Ensure Health and Mental
Health Care for Every Child
Actions
• Ask “what is your need” within church
congregation
• Promote universally available prevention
programs (i.e. community arts)
• Meet with legislators to advocate for policy
reforms (i.e. young adult CORI legislation, paid
sick days for family members)
• Meet with governor’s office to advocate for
program expansion (i.e. mentoring)
Group 6: Provide
High Quality Early
Childhood
Development for All
Goals
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Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
Stop system from locking up our children
Home visiting
Outreach workers
Sense of identity
Bringing ideas and setting goals for parents
Stopping labels – wording of reports from negative to positive
Adequate, safe, licensed child care facilities
Schools taking responsibility
Change public policy
Urban public schools punitive
Harlem Baby Project Replication
Sense of pride in identity outside of neg. models
Home-visiting programs and outreach programs
Overwhelming bureaucracy
Schools and housing look like prisons
Resources
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Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
We can all be educators
City Year
Programs for women in jail
Systems for Positive Behavioral Support
Aid to incarcerated mothers
Committee of friends, family, and relatives
The people
Book about visiting of young children
Positive behavioral support exists in some states in
schools
• Aid to incarcerated mothers – lost $ , re-establish driving
to visits and mentoring
Actions
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
• Banning zero tolerance policies
• Supporting children while mothers are
away
• Rehabilitation for mothers and fathers who
are in prison
• Setting up a buffer for both parties
(parents and children)
• Keeping mothers in communities
Actions
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
• Change way MC clinicians write - language
is important
• Ban zero tolerance policies in
schools/reserve for violence
• Bring programs to moms in prison and keep
connection between parent and child
• Re-establish aid to incarcerated mothers
• Recreate summit at City Year; Follow-up
with core members that work with kids
Group 7: Provide
High Quality Early
Childhood
Development for All
Goals
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Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
Develop systems of collaboration
– Find connecting points, broad constituency movement (include trade
groups and business)
– Identify what’s going on that’s right.
Divert 1% of budget to preventive programs
Start a public campaign
– Focus groups
– Find something that resonates with people who are disconnected from
violence as an everyday reality
– Use facebook as an advocacy tool
Come up with a solution-oriented message – find the right language
– Re-frame the issue: Make it positive
– What children and youth deserve – a society that trusts and respects
them.
Resources
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
• Study: re: cost to society of a young
person incarcerated ($135K $500K/lifetime cost for every young person
who isn’t diverted); David will send out.
• Welfare system isn’t working:
www.carecaucus.org
• See notes for highlights of conversation.
Actions
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
What could you do differently now in your
realm of control and authority?
• Leland: Nursery school across the street from
his shop. Plans to go introduce himself to the
children and shop them around his shop.
• David: Best crime prevention program there
is = People who think that people should be
locked up realizing that the system isn’t
working.
Actions
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
• Jody: Latina family childcare providers –
Get them to promote change for children.
• Carol: Think in terms of current-day reality.
Relationship disconnect is an issue. Use
facebook/websites as a tool.
Group 8: Provide
High Quality Early
Childhood
Development for All
Goals
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
• Early and correct identification of mental/emotional
health problems
• Ensuring integration of families and prenatal health care
• Universal home visiting for all individuals (teen moms,
etc.)
• Un-collapse mental disabilities, teenage delinquency
• Treat as individuals
• Make clear to parents the importance of attachment
theory, deal with maternal depression
• Enhance professional development of childcare
providers
Resources
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Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
SAMSA, Community health centers in Boston
Childcare agencies
Special ed providers
Colleges and universities
Families
Arts Institute of Boston (Horizons for Homeless Children)
Schools of social work and education
Mass New Parents Initiative
Centering (prenatal and post-partum)
Healthy Baby and Healthy Child
Pyramid Model
CSEFEL
Reach Out and Read
Actions
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
• Give support to health centers, children and
families in diagnosing and giving correct
support, explaining and integrating families
• Pregnancy health programs, to ensure
healthy born children
• Parenting classes for middle/high school kids
• Less theoretical educations, better and more
up-to-date curricula at schools of social work
and education
Actions
Provide High Quality Early
Childhood Development
Programs for All
• Demystifying early intervention resources
and programs
• Increasing # of early intervention providers
• Family literacy
• Checklist for parents for picking out a
daycare provider and dealing with positive
and negative aspects of daycare
Group 9: Ensure
Every Child Can
Read at Grade Level
by Fourth Grade and
Guarantee Quality
Education through
High School
Graduation
High Quality Education
Goals
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Publicize the issue
Provide access to resources (reading materials)
Provide support for and empower caregivers
Provide support for students outside of home
Community mobilization
Expanded learning time
Change Code of Discipline
High Quality Education
Resources
• Boston Parent Organizing Network
• Right Question Project
• Boston Foundation
High Quality Education
Actions
• Make information about adolescent
cognitive and identity development readily
available
• Write letter to President Obama
Group 10: Ensure Every
Child Can Read at Grade
Level by Fourth Grade
and Guarantee Quality
Education through High
School Graduation
High Quality Education
Goals
• Expand teacher recruitment and emphasize teacher
retention
– teacher compensation
– incentive programs for non-traditional teachers and
professionals
– professional development
– peer mentoring
– induction
– coaching
High Quality Education
Goals
• Enhance the curriculum for teacher and support staff
preparation
– community building/community organizing skills
– developmentally and culturally responsive
– student interest-based
– practical
– research on high expectations
• Reinforce Elementary Education programs with ELA
content knowledge and practices
High Quality Education
Resources
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literature/resources
education organizations/non-profit networks
research skills
moral language
time
knowledge of inclusive education and cultural
responsiveness
• data collection/analysis organizations
• University Lab Schools
• experience working with young children and with school
districts
High Quality Education
Resources
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own organization that prepares publications
policy experience
credibility
legal services/legal training
enthusiasm to teach
High Quality Education
Actions
• conducting research
• transfer research into tools and resources for
practitioners
• use of publication to agitate community action for
advocacy in education
• professional development for teachers
• entering the teaching force
• advocate in community
• trained in peer mediation
• youth mentoring/volunteering
• musical skills
Group 11: Ensure Every
Child Can Read at Grade
Level by Fourth Grade
and Guarantee Quality
Education through High
School Graduation
High Quality Education
Goals
• Every child reading at grade level by 4th grade
and graduate with a high quality education
through high school.
• Structured after-school time and positive, male
role-models for youth.
High Quality Education
Resources
• Early childhood education – put students in education
and connected to social workers.
• Parent – child home program (Home visits to projects,
teach parenting skills, access community resources)
• Welfare services
• BU college degree for incarcerated
• Alternative to violence programs in prisons
• Community centers
• Hyde Park Task Force
• Arts for Humanities
• Faith based organizations
High Quality Education
Actions
• Hire community members
• Hire prior reformed inmates to be role models and
mentors
Group 12: Ensure Every
Child Can Read at Grade
Level by Fourth Grade
and Guarantee Quality
Education through High
School Graduation
High Quality Education
Goals
• Change statutes
– Judiciary and prosecution -schools lack resources
– Change sentencing guidelines
• Intervening earlier than involvement with court system
– Change zero tolerance policies
– Ensure rights being protected
– Change mindset
High Quality Education
Goals
• Re-allocation of money
– Diversion of $ - involve the commissioner
– More $ towards services
– No representation @ school hearings is a problem;
increase access to representation
– Social and emotional learning – start earlier; improve
school climate to develop student’s sense of
belonging
High Quality Education
Resources
• Framingham model
– DMH funded – mental health intervention for youth
• Youth Advocacy Project
– 2 full time representatives
• National Juvenile Defenders Center
– Due process; rights protected
• Representation
– for diversion early on; diversion before arrest @ school
level
• DYS – Roxbury
– Restructured programs, bring girls to programs, legal
representation
• Mental health services (DMH)
High Quality Education
Actions
• Take $$ from the police force
• Pilot a program
– In 1 district to start
– Combination – change zero tolerance and harsh
policies, increase access to representation, early
diversion
– School districts – find key decision points where
students are being lost and find/use alternatives
– Ask Department of Corrections or Youth Services to
help fund pilot project??? (may be difficult due to
budget situation)
High Quality Education
Actions
• Need a cultural change
– Also look at other countries for models
– Need to increase political will to make changes
• Ed Law Project?
• Need to make issues more public
• Increase public awareness
• Build capacity of defense bar
• Divert students early so they don’t need attorneys
• Help schools be more aware of services available (i.e. in
community)
• Use child behavioral interventions
Group 13: Protect
Children from Abuse
and Neglect and
Connect Them to
Caring Permanent
Families
Goals
Protect children from abuse
and neglect and connect them
to caring permanent families
• Every student in Mass schools receives regular EPSDT
screening to detect signs of abuse or neglect as early as
possible
• Early identification of children in families at risk for abuse
and neglect
• Breaking silos, creating multi-disciplinary teams to
address the whole child and promote early detection
• Full time school nurses in every school
Resources
Protect children from abuse
and neglect and connect them
to caring permanent families
• Nurses and adjustment counselors in
school
• Practical moves to improve access to
supports in schools, healthcare etc. e.g.
providing transport, mobile health services
counseling
Group 14: Protect
Children from Abuse
and Neglect and
Connect Them to
Caring Permanent
Families
Protect Children from
Abuse and Neglect
Goals
• Collaborative agency or network to connect
different services (public/private)
• Provide training about abuse to faith-based or
community-based organizations
• Encourage more families to become foster
families and provide loving homes to children
• Increase public awareness about foster care so
that positive experiences are shared in the
media
Protect Children from
Abuse and Neglect
Resources
• Faith-based or community organizations
• Capitalize on framework of schools and teachers
– Children who come from abusive homes can
find alternative families and support in schools
• Voices of children who have experienced
abuse/neglect and/or foster care
Protect Children from
Abuse and Neglect
Actions
• Lengthen school day and school year so that schools
and teachers can focus on whole child, not just testing
• Increase awareness about abuse and about foster care
to churches, community organizations, schools, and the
general public
• Investigate services that could be linked to the ones you
already provide – increase communication
• Individual advocacy (i.e. letters to public officials) –
become individual mentors (i.e. Big Brothers/Big Sisters)
Group 15: Stop the
Criminalization of
Children at
Increasingly Younger
Ages
Goals
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Stop the Criminalization
of Children
Create diversion programs
Decriminalize minor “criminal” behavior
Pass no permanent expulsion legislation.
Get rid of police in the schools
CHINS and bail reform
Improve links between community
programs, schools, parents.
• Restore/build enrichment programs
Resources
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Get DCS involved
• Community Programs
• All the $$ spent locking kids up in DYS
could be better used for services and
diversion programs
Actions
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Early intervention- bolster services,
community resources, after-school
activities (art, sports, etc)
• Educate parents, teachers, constituents of
consequences of CHINS
• Educate parents and teachers about
programs and resources
Group 16: Stop the
Criminalization of
Children at
Increasingly Younger
Ages
Goals
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Specific Goal: Have Chuck Turner and
the UMass Chancellor attend the next
““Dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline”
planning committee meeting
Resources
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Universities
• Churches / synagogues / spiritual
institutions
• Youth experts
• Mentors
• Kimberly Snodgrass – REACH
• Craigslist
• Local businesses (leftover goods)
Resources
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Incarcerated students (proposals to help
strengthen family bonds)
• Harlem Children Zone as a resource
• Unemployed Grandparents & Teenagers
• Chuck Turner’s CORI reform work
• Incarcerated / CORI parents
• X-Cel Inc, Adult Ed
Actions
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Specific Action: Invite Chuck Turner and
the Chancellor of UMass to the next
“Dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline”
planning committee meeting
Group 17: Stop the
Criminalization of
Children at
Increasingly Younger
Ages
Goals
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Kids need advocates in the system to give
them a voice
• Build a campaign and constituency to
advocate for kids in the system
• Seek input and involvement from kids in
system to ensure their voices are heard
• Teach advocacy skills to children to learn
to articulate their needs and
circumstances
Goals
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Advocacy groups established at each
school to teach parents and kids to deal
with the system
• Hire parents that will focus on kids to fill
this role – with ongoing training and
oversight
• FMLA – type leave to go to their children’s
school without penalty
Resources
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Training programs
• Tap parents and churches and com.
organizations
• Prevention focus to show kids they have
options and opportunities
• Positive male role models
• Legal resources to show ineffectiveness of
current policy
• Parents!
Actions
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Put advocates in schools that are not
employed by the school and known to the
family before issues arise
• Change policy to protect children in
schools
• -No record for kids that are not found to
have committed a crime
• Reduce arrests in schools for disciplinary
misconduct
Actions
Stop the Criminalization
of Children
• Prohibit arrests for non-criminal offenses
AND no record that follows the child
• Constitutional challenge to criminal code
to show it is vague and broad to arrest
kids for disturbing assembly at school
• Separate school statute to define
responses to disciplinary issues
Group 18: Effective
Interventions for
Youth Deep Into the
Pipeline
Effective Interventions for
Youth Deep Into the Pipeline
Goals
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Create a new shared vision for people
Work with DYS to change punitive policy: incarceration for technical
violations
Work with schools: change zero-tolerance policy; create dialogue between
parents and children to create more understanding; increase accessible
education opportunities;
Employment readiness and jobs for kids in the pipeline: has to happen
before kids come up
Re-entry: deliver essential services that a child needs during incarceration:
shelter, training, jobs, mentorship that hold them accountable
Strengthen networks to create stronger safety nets
Increase support for organizations that help with re-entry services
Fragmented Process: lots of gaps within the system where children fall into
Bring Legislatures to the table
Effective Interventions for
Youth Deep Into the Pipeline
Resources
• High Convention (network of funders/providers)
• Churches/Houses of Worship: tremendous
resources that are under the radar; some don’t take
outside funding
• Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee
• Worker’s Unions/Economic Developers (Neighbor to
Neighbor/SCIU/Apple Seed/ACLU Massachusetts)
Effective Interventions for
Youth Deep Into the Pipeline
Actions
• Education and campaign about this new
vision?
• Work with Department of Youth Services
to change punitive policies
Follow up –
Representatives identified by
small groups to review action
plans, propose next steps
Follow Up
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Betty Allen, Consultant/Clinician
Mia Alvarado, Roxbury Youthworks, Inc.
Carmen Alvarez, Educator
Doreen Arcus (UMass-Lowell)
Rosie Batista, MGH Chelsea
Cheryl D. Bezis, Attorney
Andrea Campbell, The EdLaw Project
Maryann C. Calia, Youth Advocacy Department, CPCS
Georgia Critsley, Massachusetts Criminal History Systems Board
Lynn Currier, Haitkaah Social Justice Project
Maureen Devlin, Community Resources for Justice
Follow Up
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Stan Dominique, City School
Cathy Draine, Freedom House
Judith Glaubman
Devondar Goods, Harvard Kennedy School
Roy Karp, Civic Education Project
Alex Kern, Executive Director, Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries
G. Mia Khera, Heller School/Brandeis University
Rhiana Kohl, DOC
Christina Kozycki, Harvard School of Public Health
Bill Leahy, Committee for Public Counsel Services
Barbara Lomax, CPCS
Follow Up
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Bishop M.R. Lunsford, Antioch Church
Elizabeth Matos, Legal Services
Mary McGeown, MSPCC
Heavenly Mitchell, Boston Public Health Commission
Dr. Terri Nelson, Academy of Kemetic Education
Yasmin Perayra, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Sondra Peskoe, Cambridge School Volunteers
Morrigan Phillips, Prison Birth Project
Rebecca Pries, Adolescent Consultation Services
Janine Quarles, Union of Minority Neighorhoods
Follow Up
• Kathryn Ratey, Youth Advocacy Department
• Kathy Reboul, CFJJ
• Roxanne Reddington-Wilde, Action for Boston Community
Development, Inc
• Louise Richmond, Child Welfare League of America
• Laura Rotolo, ACLU of Massachusetts
• Franklin Shearer, The Boston Foundation
• Katie Strunk, Boston University
• Joe Worthy, City Year