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.