YOUTH REENTRY
DYD works closely with partners to expand healing centered and culturally relevant resources to support system-impacted youth in facilities and in their communities.
Did You Know?
A growing body of evidence shows that youth incarceration does not decrease law-breaking behavior and actually does lasting damage to young people’s health and wellbeing. Policy and practice changes, including strengthening community-based reentry and alternatives to confinement focused on holistic youth development, can reduce youth incarceration while improving youth and safety outcomes. Youth development is public safety.
Credible Messenger Program
Our Credible Messenger demonstration project supports youth who are detained and recently released with transformative mentorship and care coordination provided by community-based partners.
In Facility
Our initial demonstration project is focused on young people detained in Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and Campus Vernon Kilpatrick, in partnership with the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and Healing Dialogue and Action. In 2024, Credible Messenger mentorship expanded to girls and gender expansive youth in partnership with the Young Women’s Freedom Center, as well as youth with developmental disabilities in partnership with Alma Family Services at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. DYD continues to work to strengthen and expand transformative mentorship inside facilities.
Community-Based Reentry Navigation
DYD is launching a new reentry initiative which will connect youth with a Credible Messenger team at a Community-Based Organization to provide transformative mentorship and reentry care coordination, navigation and service linkages. Research and practice have shown that pairing youth with an individual with relevant, lived experience can lead to greater service utilization and positive outcomes. The priority population for this work are youth who have been recently released from detention facilities, although any justice-system involved youth may be referred.
What is a Credible Messenger?
A Credible Messenger is a trusted mentor with personal experience navigating justice and other system involvement directly or indirectly. Credible Messengers are connected to and rooted in the community, and serve as positive, culturally sensitive role models who provide guidance and support to system-involved youth.
What do Credible Messengers do?
Credible Messengers build trusting relationships with system-involved youth to promote positive personal growth and development. They help youth develop life skills and access the resources they need to succeed. This includes helping youth process trauma, develop coping and communication skills, build positive relationships, and plan for the future through individualized mentorship, as well as formal and informal programming.
What impact do Credible Messengers have?
Credible Messengers understand the underlying needs and social dynamics that contribute to system involvement and offer mentorship that helps youth feel understood and builds meaningful accountability. This creates a foundation for building trust and rapport, which can help break down barriers to a young person’s successful participation in other supportive and rehabilitative services.
Informed by promising practices in violence prevention and restorative practices, guidance from youth and community with lived experience, and lessons learned from other jurisdictions, Credible Messenger mentorship and care coordination has emerged as an opportunity to provide transformative support to young people who may have complex needs and experience high barriers to engagement and success in traditional service-delivery or placement models. Trusted messenger models have long existed in diverse forms, and Los Angeles County is beginning to implement Credible Messenger services within county facilities, similar to the approach in Washington D.C. and New York, where Credible Messengers are systematically integrated into institutions.
The Credible Messenger program employs individuals who share similar life experiences with youth involved in the justice system and/or child welfare system and are trained in developmentally and culturally sensitive strategies for building trust and engagement with youth, providing care-first and restorative de-escalation and crisis intervention, and developing and coordinating holistic care plans as a complement to clinical or court-mandated plans.
Productivity & Quality Award - Top Ten
DYD’s Credible Messenger Transformative Mentorship program received a Top Ten Productivity & Quality Award with program partners from the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Healing Dialogue and Action, and Young Women’s Freedom Center!
Click here to watch the video!
Programming and Care Coordination in Facilities
DYD is partnering with community-based organizations and the LA County Probation Department to provide supportive, evidence-informed youth development programming and services to youth within the County’s Probation Department facilities. Consistent, quality, and structured programming that promotes youth engagement and development in juvenile facility settings has been proven to be fundamental to their growth, wellbeing, and facility safety. These programs support youth during their commitment inside facilities and aim to prepare them to further pursue positive pathways as they transition back into their communities.
In addition to greater programming, DYD aims to facilitate more effective care coordination for youth inside secure facilities.
Click here for more information.
DYD is also part of collaborative county efforts to ensure that every youth released from detention or incarceration has a coordinated reentry plan developed through multi-disciplinary team meetings that effectively engage and center youth and their families.
Decarceration
DYD’s efforts to reduce and end youth incarceration includes plans to increase alternatives to detention and incarceration through community-based housing alternatives and reentry supports, and facilitate and inform policies and practice changes that reduce the reliance on detention and incarceration to address youth behaviors and needs. Initially, DYD’s efforts focus on ending the incarceration of girls and gender expansive youth, and piloting residential alternatives to secure juvenile facilities.
Girls and Gender Expansive Youth
Incollaboration with the Vera Institute of Justice and other partners, DYD has developed a phased plan to advance the decarceration of girls and gender expansive youth in Los Angeles County.
Click here for more detail.
Safe Healing Centers – Residential Alternatives to Incarceration
In 2025, DYD will launch initial demonstration projects for a healing-centered, home-like alternative placement for youth called a Safe Healing Center. The initial focus population are girls and gender expansive youth.
Click here to see the phased implementation plan for Safe Healing Centers.
