Thank you for being a member of our Youth First extended network and for supporting us as we have been navigating a year full of transition and renewal, including our strategic redesign!
In 2022, we set off on a journey to merge the Youth First programmatic hub and Youth First State Advocacy Fund, and to reimagine new ways of working that would result in greater participation, ownership, engagement, and decision-making with our partners. After dedicated listening sessions and co-creation team meetings with our state partners, funders, and frontline youth leaders, we have emerged with a set of shared principles that will guide our work as a campaign building resource hub that offers technical assistance, funding, and organizational capacity-building support to our state partners:
- Supporting campaigns that are grounded in racial justice
- Doubling down on empowering and developing youth leaders
- Continuing to focus on strategic communications, narrative change, and elevating the voices of directly impacted youth, families, and communities
- Focusing more intensively on the community reinvestments needed to realize youth visions of a future without youth prisons
To reflect these guiding principles, we will be changing our name to The Youth First Justice Collaborative (YFJC), which fittingly was chosen by our state partners. As we roll out our name change, you will see subtle changes to our branding while most of our national online resources and our website will operate the same. And as we begin implementing our new strategic framework, we will accelerate our efforts to mobilize resources for our state partners as they continue to build power and advance campaigns to close youth prisons and push for reinvestment in community services and supports for young people and their families.
In addition to our name change, we are also excited to share that in the coming weeks we will announce our new executive director, release a new short film featuring our youth leaders, and host a launch event with our state partners so that you can learn more about how our new collaborative will work.
As we prepare for The Youth First Justice Collaborative launch, we would appreciate your support, so please encourage friends, family, and colleagues who may be interested to sign up for our newsletter. While our name may be changing, we believe this evolution simply captures what we’ve always aspired to be, and we thank you for being part of the Youth First Justice Collaborative.
