{"id":1526,"date":"2024-10-30T16:20:56","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T16:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/?p=1526"},"modified":"2024-10-30T16:47:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T16:47:06","slug":"cfcc-2024-symposium-blog-series-promoting-community-bonds-during-legal-proceedings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/2024\/10\/30\/cfcc-2024-symposium-blog-series-promoting-community-bonds-during-legal-proceedings\/","title":{"rendered":"CFCC 2024 Symposium Blog Series: Promoting Community Bonds During Legal Proceedings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"CFCC 2024 SYMPOSIUM - Promoting Community Bonds During Legal Proceedings\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2i0X_LDENus?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Tuesday, October 1, 2024, CFCC hosted its symposium, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keeping Youth in Community: Policies, Practices, and Programs to \u200bPromote Youth Justice,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at the University of Baltimore School of Law. This blog is one in a series of four posts about the CFCC 2024 Symposium.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During Panel Two, moderated by Alice Wilkerson, executive director of Advance Maryland, panelists shared their insights on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Promoting Community Bonds During Legal Proceedings.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kicking off the panel, The Hon. Charles Blomquist, associate judge and Judge-in-Charge, Juvenile Division, Baltimore \u200bCity Circuit Court, reminded us that whenever we are thinking about best practices, we need to remember that we are \u201cdealing with individual kids, children who have names, and not a collective.\u201d Thus, while we need to rely on data, what each child requires depends on their specific circumstances. He later expressed that this is difficult in practice due to the delay in implementation of services even after they are identified and ordered. Jennifer Rallo, team captain of the Juvenile Division, Office of the State&#8217;s Attorney for Baltimore City, explained how as a juvenile system prosecutor, what drives her decision-making is the balance between her two roles: protecting public safety and what is in the best interest of the youth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other panelists explained why increased court involvement is rarely in the best interest of the child. Josh Rovner, director of youth justice for The Sentencing Project, noted that despite the need for flexibility, children are automatically treated as adults if charged with one of 34 crimes in Maryland. He cited data that reveals that court involvement is worse for children on 19 different metrics of child well-being, and the deeper that children go into the system, the worse their outcomes are. Michelle Kim, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">assistant public defender and supervising attorney\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">at the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore City, recounted a conversation with a returning youth client who had not been home for more than six months since he became a teenager.\u00a0 He lamented all of the ways his social and emotional development were being stunted due to his detention. She said she took for granted all the things that children don\u2019t experience or learn when they are not in their community during crucial developmental stages.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rovner expressed frustration that the data is clear that youth who are detained, committed, and\/or put on probation are more likely to reoffend, yet we continue to take that approach while forcing community-based programs to justify their existence. Kim explained that where we do have data, the data supports the expansion of\u00a0 these alternatives to court, with low rates of recidivism and high completion rates for services. 94\u00a0 percent of children who were diverted did not reoffend, and 88 percent completed all of their mandated services. She noted that these programs are better suited than court involvement to address children\u2019s misbehavior in a developmentally appropriate way.\u00a0 She noted that programs like teen truancy court, as well as Restorative Response Baltimore, have proven successful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Panelists agreed that the court system is limited in scope, and courts and system actors can only do what is permitted by the law.\u00a0 Most expressed that ideally children would never have system involvement. Jennifer Rallo, team captain of the Juvenile Division, Office of the State&#8217;s Attorney for Baltimore City, explained how as a juvenile system prosecutor, what drives her decision-making is the balance between her two roles: protecting public safety and what is in the best interest of the youth.\u00a0 She\u00a0 wished that children had the supports they needed earlier so that they would never end up in the juvenile system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When asked what the key ingredients for success are to support youth in community, panelists agreed that caring adults and mentors was critical. Bloomquist noted that a number of alternative programs have demonstrated benefits, and there are countless opportunities to connect with a child. Rovner acknowledged that having culturally competent, community-based providers is also crucial because differences in background, race, culture, and ethnicity can sometimes be barriers to connection. Kim said such programs need the buy-in of the youth that they\u2019re serving.\u00a0 It is important to these youth that they see concrete results and support for their communities. Panelists also acknowledged that many of these children lack resources, both in terms of services and the ability to meet material needs, like housing, temporary cash assistance, and food.\u00a0 As Kim emphasized, \u201cWe cannot talk about kids having a college education without making sure they first have clean clothes.\u201d To that end, Wilkerson and Kim urged people to please donate to the OPD youth supply closet, so that young people who have juvenile system involvement can shop for the things they need, especially as winter draws near.\u00a0 Please click here if you would like to support these young people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, October 1, 2024, CFCC hosted its symposium, Keeping Youth in Community: Policies, Practices, and Programs to \u200bPromote Youth Justice, at the University of Baltimore School of Law. This blog is one in a series of four posts about the CFCC 2024 Symposium. During Panel Two, moderated by Alice Wilkerson, executive director of Advance&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2988,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2988"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1536,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}