e-Newsletters

YOU(TH) MATTER is a new initiative of Strategies for Youth led by three youth leaders Laura Jenny, Isaac Annan, and Hannah Sussman.

While the media continues to focus on the Presidential and Senate races, we wanted to share with you some initial impressions and findings from the recent election regarding police/community relations.

SFY is addressing the necessity of training law enforcement using new approaches. In addition to some remote training, SFY has launched a podcast series. The podcasts will offer experts’ thoughts on the challenges facing law enforcement in the current policing context and offer strategies for working with young people who are also dealing with the stress of the global pandemic.

Strategies for Youth releases a podcast featuring discussions with JJJ game leaders who have brought they game to their communities.

Summoning the will to withstand the inevitable pushback will continue to be our greatest challenge to real change. Experience has shown me that what is needed for real, enduring reform starts with the political will at all levels to insist on reforming law enforcement policies and practices in America.

We encourage you to read and sign on to SFY’s Agenda for Reforming Youth Policing Practices & Policies and our statement in support of it. Our positions derive from working with law enforcement, juvenile justice system stakeholders, and youth in 20 states over the past 10 years.

Summoning the will to withstand the inevitable pushback will continue to be our greatest challenge to real change. Experience has shown me that what is needed for real, enduring reform starts with the political will at all levels to insist on reforming law enforcement policies and practices in America.

The case for civic action and education.
Now more than ever, we need people to channel their pain and their talents into actions. We need mobilization, but more importantly, we need education.

What can we do?
As cities around the country experience riots and rage, it’s hard, at a moment like this, for those of us safe and fortunate enough to be able to ask this question, it’s so hard to know how to act. The urge to take to the streets in rage and frustration is matched by the urge to take to our beds in resignation.

Strategies for Youth is pleased to announce that the Policing the Teen™ training curriculum has been recognized as meeting all standards of the IADLEST National Certification Program™. This certification ensures that law enforcement officers across the country will be able to receive continuing education credit within their state’s training academy for the Policing the Teen™ course. SFY’s course will now be listed with other IADLEST-certified courses at www.firstforward.com

A Survey of State Laws Regulating School Resource Officers. Despite a 20-year investment of close to $2 billion by the federal and state governments, police who are deployed in public schools—commonly known as School Resource Officers (SROs—are neither adequately trained nor supervised, according to a new survey of state laws just released by Strategies for Youth (SFY).

Each year Strategies for Youth welcomes interns to work with us on special projects, observe our Jeopardy games and Policing the Teen Brain trainings, and conduct research for us on trends that are surfacing. This summer we were pleased to welcome two students whose internships were funded by the Forest Foundation and a student from American University. We hope you will take a moment and read each of their short essays about their experiences at SFY this summer.

SFY was launched nine years ago with a single contract of $22,000 from the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority Transit Police. I’m not sure if, even in my wildest dreams, I expected us to grow to have a presence in 19 states with an annual budget of over $850,000! Much of the credit goes to our small, incredibly hard-working and talented staff who have turned multi-tasking into an art form.

Strategies for Youth is pleased to announce the names of the five young people who won prizes in its first annual Youth Voices Contest. In the fall of 2018, SFY invited youth to write an essay or poem or submit a piece of art answering the question: How would you improve police/youth interactions??

In addition to providing direct services, SFY advocates for the adoption by police departments of developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed, racially equitable policies and approaches. Highlights of recent efforts include…

Strategies for Youth was thrilled to learn that 13 individuals—nine police officers, an intake supervisor, diversion specialist, and two mental health clinicians—were awarded Humanitarian Ribbons by the City of Virginia Beach Human Rights Commission for their work facilitating Policing the Teen Brain to law enforcement officers. SFY has been working closely with the Virginia Beach Police Department, under the exceptional leadership of Deputy Chief William Dean, since 2014. Chief Dean tells us that 100% of the department—or approximately 750 officers—have now received the training.

Strategies for Youth has been in the news lately with columns we have written printed in The Hill, USA Today and Youth Today. Our piece on how police training might have avoided the death of 15 year old Jordan Edwards in Dallas met with positive feedback; our article on research about the psychological impacts of police shootings of unarmed blacks drew criticism. Please check out the articles—and the kinds of responses they provoke—to understand the challenges to improving police/youth relations in the U.S.

Each year Strategies for Youth welcomes interns to work with us on special projects, observe our Jeopardy games and Policing the Teen Brain trainings, and conduct research for us on trends that are surfacing. This summer we were pleased to welcome interns from Northeastern Law School, Boston College, and Boston University.

Strategies for Youth sprang to life in 2010, with a sense of urgency and conviction that our programs would change lives. On a scant $22,000 budget, in donated office space and with a volunteer staff, we held our first trainings in 2 states. The intervening 8 years have brought many changes. We’ve outgrown two offices. Our staff includes 3 full-time, 5 part-time employees, as well as volunteers. Our budget, now closer to $850,000, has allowed us to extend our impact to 18 states!

Help decrease the violent interactions between police officers and youth by supporting Strategies for Youth’s results-oriented community outreach programs.
Strategies for Youth is a policy and training organization dedicated to improving police/youth interactions through community engagement, police training, outreach programs for youth, and proactive use of multi-disciplinary approaches to problem solve and build relationships between police and youth.

This winter, while searching for a recipe that would resemble my grandfather’s almond cookies, I came across a recipe for the “amygdalota.” At SFY, we often speak of the amygdala during the Policing the Teen Brain trainings.

The newsletter archives contains copies of SFY newsletters from September 2011 – June 2017.