Youth Initiatives

youth initiatives
We invest in young people as leaders within their communities and beyond and support them to reach their self-defined goals.

The Center for Justice Innovation works with youth to create paths to economic mobility, build community safety, and address the inequities and racist policies in the criminal legal system that have disproportionately harmed and criminalized BIPOC youth.  

Transformative relationships among staff, young people, and the community are the foundation of the Center’s model. We invest in young people as leaders within their communities and beyond and support them to reach their self-defined goals.

Initiatives

  • Youth Impact

    Youth can be transformative leaders, addressing inequity in their communities and the factors that lead to youth involvement in the criminal legal system.  

  • Identity-Based Initiatives

    We provide affirming space for young people to explore their identities, build community, pursue self-care, and access healing spaces with an intersectional lens. 

  • Youth Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise

    Social enterprise and entrepreneurship programs nurture young people’s skills to develop career pipelines and start businesses, solve local problems, and support economic development. 

  • Youth-led Placemaking

    Youth-led placemaking forges strong connections between individuals and their environments to create public spaces that foster community well-being. 

  • Youth Arts

    Art engages young people to build creativity, skills, and create networking opportunities to support educational and career trajectories. 

  • Youth Action Institute

    The Youth Action Institute is a public policy research fellowship that supports young New Yorkers in investigating and testing solutions to the issues and policies that affect their lives

  • Young Parent Initiative

    Young Parent Initiative is a new pilot project of the Center to address the needs of young parents so that they can provide social and economic supports for their young children.

Publications & Digital Media

See All Publications and Digital Media →

News

  • Saving Our Streets Brooklyn

    June 5, 2024
    Our Time Press

    "To finally end gun violence in our communities, we need to invest in our kids and give them the support they need to thrive." That was Anthony Rowe, project director of our Neighbors in Action program in Brooklyn, after the team partnered with Launch Charter School in Crown Heights to support a walkout of more than 100 middle school students for National Gun Violence Awareness Month. In Our Time Press, hear from teachers, community activists, and lawmakers on the tragic toll of gun violence in Brooklyn and the important work being done to prevent it.

  • The Brooklyn Community That Wants Youth to Stop Shooting and Start Living

    April 24, 2024
    NBC

    NBC profiles our Save Our Streets (S.O.S.) program, which works in Brooklyn and the Bronx to stop shootings by building community relationships and connecting young people to support. Hear from Rahson Johnson, a violence interrupter and youth advocate with our S.O.S. team, who uses his lived experience with gun violence and the prison system to help guide children towards a better path. “The challenge for me was going back to the community that I wanted to destroy, that I was hurt by, and being able to make change,” Johnson tells NBC’s Maya Brown.

View Archive →

We work with reformers around the world.

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