Since 2010, Youth Represent has prided itself on its outstanding partnership with more than 16 organizations and agencies across New York City. In fact, our partnerships -- which range from workforce development, alternative-to-incarceration to LGTBQ youth and health -- are the cornerstone of our community-lawyering model to help us reach and assist our criminal system involved youth clients.
“Different partner organizations introduce us to new communities, who all intersect with the criminal legal system in different ways,” says Youth Represent Executive Director Michael Pope. “This, in turn, serves as an organic catalyst for us to add new areas of practice.”
Over the coming year and a half, Pope says that Youth Represent hopes to “engage in a strategic planning process that focuses on the needs of youth at these new spaces and ensures that our growth over the next three years is deliberate and in alignment with our mission.”
It also helps organizations, such as Getting Out Staying Out (GOSO), offer legal services to clients that isn’t set up to legally assist otherwise, says GOSO President and CEO Dr. Jocelynne Rainey.
“Youth Represent has been a great partner to GOSO… As you can imagine, the obstacles or roadblocks that our young people come across when they return to the community are definitely areas where Youth Represent is really helpful to them,” said Rainey, whose organization works with youth ages 16 through 24 who are either in prison or detained in the jails. “We refer our participants over to them on a regular basis on things they may be dealing with - like possibly being rearrested, but they also do a lot of work around workshops and counseling for our participants around knowing their rights and being prepared when they are active [participants] in our community.”
Likewise, Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center (MSAHC) has partnered with Youth Represent since 2017. MSAHC Medical Director Dr. Anne Nucci-Sack, says that the young people that they have referred to Youth Represent have utilized the in-house and remote services for a wide-range of reasons that reach outside of their medical needs, including obtaining transgender official documentation, housing, education, college and financial aid assistance, and more.
“It just seems like nothing is strictly medical because we don’t live in a vacuum and we need to have everything integrated to succeed. Having that legal piece is really, really, really helpful,” Nucci-Sack said. Having a four-day-a-week on-site Youth Represent staffer also helps the teens open up to someone who is a confidential advocate who can enact change on his or her behalf or lead them to someone who can.
“People think of legal services and think ‘Oh, I’m in a tight spot, I got a summons for jumping the turnstile’ - which happens too - but it’s also helpful to have someone who can advocate for you,” Nucci-Sack said.
“The bottom line really is more than just that there’s a layer of commitment and communications and I know that [Youth Represent is] they are committed to the clients and they really want to see best outcomes for the clients. They stay with them and work with them remotely and on-site and they have been very helpful. I think it is an important piece of an integrated health care facility.”
Beyond Youth Represent’s traditional workforce development and alternative-to-incarceration partnerships, our attorneys and paralegals partner with public schools, mental health clinics, immigration groups, and shelters for LGBTQ and GNC youth.
Partnering In Good: Modeling a Future for Our Clients