In 2022, thanks to generous support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Justice for Families (J4F) launched the Community Peer Navigator (CPN) Institute. This is an intersectional approach to supporting justice-impacted families by providing trauma-informed peer support and direct services to families with youth involved in the justice system. The CPN Institute trains a cohort of local caregivers to become effective advocates as they navigate the justice system, as well as organizers of peer groups for reform efforts.
Among the topics covered in the Community Peer Navigator trainings include:
- Racism and oppression, and developing skills to advance racial justice
- The impact of trauma on adolescent brain development;
- The five core elements of successful family reunification after periods of separation;
- Skills to advocate for successful reunification for impacted youth and their families;
- Skills to advocate for policy change that better serve the needs of families.
Trained Community Peer Navigators help families negotiate often complex and confusing social service systems and manage on-going communication with juvenile justice agencies. They also provide young people involved in the justice system the social and emotional support needed after prolonged disconnection from their families, communities, and education, and the resources required during post-incarceration reintegration.
Over the past year, CPN Institute trained 40 predominantly Black and Latinx participants from the five boroughs in NYC, as well as impacted communities nationwide. CPN graduates, including eight national families, remained connected with J4F after the Institute training through Virtual Workshops, which focused on health and wellness. The most engaged CPN graduates, including four national families, provided mentorship through ongoing email and text communications and periodic in-depth phone calls. These participants were also involved in the facilitation of a total of 20 additional Wellness Workshops in their home communities, which engaged and trained 25-30 families each, as well as tabling at local community events. Overall, the workshops led by CPN Institute graduates reached an average of 25-30 justice system-impacted families in their host communities for a total of 500 families nationwide.
CPN graduates also participated in Youth Action Awareness Day, a J4F event which took place at the J4F Bronx headquarters. The event brought in local families from the community with music, art, yoga, and great food. It was a celebration of our resiliency and a chance to provide information and resources to our families, including J4F literature on systems policies impacting families, children and poverty, and children in the juvenile justice system. It was a day centered on local resources that strengthened the mind, body, and soul.
One CPN Institute graduate, Cassandra Johnson, is now the Family Navigator with Urban Community Network in Harris County, Texas. Cassandra is a wonderful example of what the CPN training can bring forth in communities across the country: developing directly-impacted leaders to bring their lived experience into service. J4F is now partnering with Cassandra and Urban Community Network to plan an in-person Family Leadership Institute that will take place in Harris Country this year. Families will fly-in from across the country to participate.
More punitive policing approaches have returned to our most vulnerable communities, a response to pandemic-created challenges that has led to increasing crime. As a result, the demand for the services of organizations like J4F has spiked and parents and caregivers have expressed an urgent need for support beyond the justice system. Community Peer Navigators is one of the ways J4F is shifting to a strategy that extends through and beyond the criminal justice system to empower families to assist and advocate for their loved ones in a broader spectrum of spaces.
J4F will present another cycle of Community Peer Navigator Institute training in 2023.