Open City Advocates

Programs: Youth advocacy and mentoring: open city advocates provides holistic support to approximately 40 youth each year, helping our youth with critical issues such as education, employment, and housing as they transition out of juvenile incarceration. We are proud of our proven ability to help young people avoid a life of criminal behavior and make our city safer. The rate of reconviction is high for our target population. More than one-third (34%) of new beginnings residents are convicted of a new crime within a mere six months of release. By comparison, our reconviction rate is 14%, which means that our program cuts the reconviction rate of our youth by more than half. Open city advocates first connects with our youth after they have been committed to the dc department of youth (see schedule o)

systemic reform: we are dedicated to ensuring that the barriers to legal representation and successful reentry are removed for all youth. What we learn from individual cases allows us to effect systemic change and to play an influential role in improving the system, both locally and nationally. Our current efforts primarily focus on ensuring that the services provided in institutions and in the community are robust, individualized, and therapeutic; that coherent reentry plans are created and implemented for all youth; and that youth have access to legal counsel to ensure due process throughout their commitment to the city.

youth empowerment: open city advocates purposefully involves our youth and solicits their feedback for all aspects of our programmatic design. We also provide our youth with leadership opportunities whenever possible. Additionally, as a member of dcs juvenile justice advisory group (jjag), our ceo co-chairs the jjags youth committee, which ensures that youth have a voice in local policies and funding priorities related to juvenile justice.