NEXT STEPS LIAISON PROJECT
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Mission Statement
Next Steps Liaison Project connects court-involved youth to their internal power and external resources. We believe in correction through connection. Next Steps holds that teaching kids to "do right" is a process, and that that process must be taught in connection, not in isolation. We are dedicated to helping detained and court-involved youth get on a positive path after incarceration. Our approach is two-fold: first, we provide Social Emotional Learning and hands-on training to youth inside Juvenile Hall, and second, we provide internships and mentoring upon release. Our mission is to support our most vulnerable youth and reduce the cycle of recidivism in which many of these high-risk youth have become trapped.
About This Cause
Next Steps Liaison Project offers trauma informed, evidence based programming to youth detained in the San Francisco and Marin County Juvenile Halls. Next Steps believes that teaching kids to “do right” is a process that happens in the context of connection and requires ongoing opportunities for mastery. We harness the powerful combination of connection and opportunity to intercept the cycle of recidivism that results in adolescence spent in and out of detention. Next Steps Liaison Project offers an innovative, restorative approach to serving court-involved youth. Our purpose and objective is to provide a model that reduces juvenile recidivism by redirecting youth onto a path to becoming healthy young adults who contribute to their communities. Our work begins when youth are still in detention and continues upon release. We bridge youth to existing resources through our partnerships with local organizations. Next Steps will connect youth to the following community partners: City Youth Now, Success Center, Youth Working for Change, 10,000 Degrees, Conservation Corp North Bay and Slide Ranch. Our first touch point with youth is through our educational programs inside Juvenile Hall, emotional literacy and organic gardening classes. These programs provide a platform to connect with kids and teach skills needed for success on the outside. Emotional Literacy, using the Power Source curriculum by Robin and Beth Casarjian, is an evidence-based, trauma-informed, social and emotional learning (SEL) program written specifically for court involved youth. The course helps youth understand the thoughts and emotions that motivate high-risk behavior while also teaching coping and stress management skills. We launched our organic, culinary garden at Marin Juvenile Hall to address the issue of nature deprivation of youth in detention and to promote health and wellness. Studies show that time in nature reduces stress and anxiety and increases overall wellbeing. The garden provides access to the healing power of nature. Caring for a garden becomes a metaphor for gardening one’s own life. It introduces the concept of weeding out what does not serve us, while cultivating the growth of a healthy mindset. Youth grow seasonal fruits and vegetables in our Juvenile Hall garden, then funnel into agricultural internships at Slide Ranch and are empowered to embrace their own health trajectory. Increasing rates of successful re-entry is at the heart of our work. Support upon re-entry is critical as many youth on probation have limited resources at home and often have fraught relationships with adults at school. Upon release from detention, youth need positive mirroring and the opportunity to work and learn in a supportive environment. Negative peer groups and lack of alternative programs are among pitfalls youth face. Next Steps offers guidance to youth re-entering the community when they are most vulnerable and susceptible to familiar temptations. System involved youth often lack confidence and need hand holding to apply for jobs and internships. We walk youth through the application process and provide professional development for workplace success. Our internship offers an enriched, supportive, educational learning experience in a beautiful natural setting, in the context of connection to a supportive adult. Youth work closely with the Next Steps Liaison team member and Slide Ranch staff during all hours at the ranch. In the current Juvenile Justice System, positive relationships formed with staff inside Juvenile Hall are consistently severed upon youths’ release. Next Steps Liaison Project’s program design creates an opportunity for youth to stay in connection with a positive adult after release from detention. Connecting first through our programs on the inside, and offering continued support to youth on the outside, is what sets our program model apart. We put a positive adult in connection with each youth we serve to support successful transition back to the community. Emotional literacy and garden classes help youth acquire soft skills associated with workplace readiness and success such as demonstrating commitment and a positive attitude. The Slide Ranch internship gives youth an opportunity to put into practice all they have gleaned from emotional literacy and gardening classes prior to release from Juvenile Hall. It gives youth the opportunity to use their new skills in real life. Beth Casarjian Ph.D. asserts that, “The common denominator of youth in juvenile prison is trauma.” It is intentional that Next Steps chose Slide Ranch as its first community partner, an organization that “plants kids in nature”, an antidote for trauma. The Center on Disease Control (the CDC) in the mid 1990s discovered that high exposure to childhood trauma dramatically increased a child’s risk of developing 7 out of 10 of the leading causes of death in the United States. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are being included in what medical profession thought leaders consider part of a thorough patient history. Exposure to some type of trauma (including abuse, neglect, having a parent suffering from substance abuse) is considered in determining a person’s ACEs score. Time in nature is beneficial to all especially those who have experienced trauma. In a 2016 study published by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, researcher David Strayer of the University of Utah says, “People have been discussing their profound experiences in nature for the last several hundred years - from Thoreau to John Muir to many other writers. Now we are seeing changes in the brain and changes in the body that suggest we are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature.” Our internship immerses kids in nature, a novel experience for many youth growing up in poverty in Marin County. Many have little experience digging in soil, growing food and simply becoming comfortable in nature. Our approach is also influenced by the work of clinical psychologist Dr. Robert Brooks who spent years studying resilience and motivation. His research explored the question, “What makes it possible for people to overcome great obstacles and succeed in the face of challenges?” He and his research team interviewed scores of adults who had overcome great childhood adversity. They asked participants, “What has helped you to be more optimistic and resilient?” The answer time and again was the same; “There was at least one adult who believed in me and stood by me.” The late Dr. Julius Segal referred to this figure as “the charismatic adult.” Brooks and his team concluded that the charismatic adult could be one of many people; a mentor, a teacher, a parent, a coach, a family friend or relative. Whoever filled that role, the relationship was consistent in that it was “an adult from whom a child gathers strength.” Dr. Brooks describes youth he treats as “drowning in an ocean of perceived inadequacy.” He believes that if “oceans of perceived inadequacy” exist, so must there be “islands of competence.” During their internship, participants work with that charismatic adult, identify those “islands of competence” and begin taking charge of their own future. If punishment is ineffective in correcting high-risk behavior, effective alternative solutions are needed. Our innovative and restorative approach serves court-involved youth through connection and opportunity. We provide system-involved youth with hope and make lasting change possible.