Annie E. Casey Foundation

Reminder: Join us this Wednesday, Feb. 26, for a webinar about messaging strategies to encourage public support for young people. Hear from Fenton's Jennifer Hahn and Casey’s Carol Abrams and learn how to use data and effective storytelling to counter harmful narratives and influ­ence poli­cies and practices that help youth thrive.

Stephen Bishop used to be a youth probation officer. He wanted to help young people navigate out of a juvenile justice system that he knew was flawed. Now, as the Associate Director for Probation and System Transformation at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Steve works to transform youth probation systems around the country – from one that punishes making mistakes in ways that leave young people worse off and neighborhoods less safe to one that holds kids accountable for their actions by steering them toward the guidance and support that can help them grow into responsible adults. In this eye-opening conversation with host Maya Rupert, Steve talks about how we can create a more just and restorative system that’s steeped in relationships, trust, and community. Listen to Good Things From Lemonada Media here:https://lnkd.in/gRiGD27u

Public benefits programs like Medicaid are essential for helping young adults and low-income families cover basic needs. However, many young people struggle to access these benefits because they don’t know about them or find the system too complicated to navigate. A new report highlights the challenges young people face in accessing public benefits and suggests ways to make the process easier.

Kids thrive when they have strong, loving connections with relatives and close family friends — also known as kin. When children aren’t able to live with their parents, kinship caregivers can offer stability and connections to family, community, culture and education. Supporting these relationships is vital for children involved in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems.

“Part of improving lives for kids — indeed, of saving kids’ lives — is to invest in child opportunity. Interventions such as increasing green space and walkability and abandoned house remediation have been shown to effectively decrease violence.”

"Oftentimes what pulls kids and families into these systems is unmet needs… It makes more sense for kids to have their health care tied to a health care system, not a carceral system." — Joseph E. Ribsam Jr., director of child welfare and juvenile justice policy at the Foundation. A federal law expands states’ abil­i­ty to use Med­ic­aid funds to pro­vide behavioral and physical health ser­vices to young people as they return to their communities after incarceration.

A lot of us did some questionable things as teenagers, like drinking alcohol, doing drugs, and shoplifting. We’re likely not proud of these moments, but they happened, and we moved on. For some of us though, this normal adolescent boundary-testing can lead to involvement in the juvenile justice system, which is ripe with racial disparities and poor results. Nathaniel Balis, Director of the Juvenile Justice Strategy Group at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, talks with host Maya Rupert about reframing how we think about youth crime, the need for effective solutions that actually promote community safety, and how much young people need adults in their corner. Listen to this episodes of Good Things from Lemonada Media here:https://lnkd.in/gRiGD27u This episode was made possible with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an organization that develops solutions to build a brighter future for children, youth, families and communities. Learn more at aecf.org.

“The child is sitting on their lap while they're in class — until they need food, until they need to be changed, until they need to get down." One in 4 Texas students is raising kids while working toward their college degree. But while student parents get better grades than their classmates, they are also less likely to finish school.

Becoming a financially stable adult is challenging — and it’s especially hard for youth in foster care who don’t have a caregiver to help them manage their money or learn to budget. The Foundation’s Opportunity Passport® helps young people build financial stability by teaching the basics of personal finance, banking and goal setting. In 2023, 3,600 young people in the program used their savings and matched funds to invest more than $2.23 million in their futures.

“Every student, disabled or not, needs assistance in career planning and services… It’s just that disabled students might have additional needs because of inaccessibility in our society. Our system generally is not accessible for people with disabilities to enter the workforce.”