01 Legal
A lawyer, and a guide through it
If a young person is questioned, charged or facing a hearing, an attorney in their corner who explains every step.
Our approach
Rooted in Reliability:
Building Commitment and Confidence for our Youth
Theory of change
When young people facing the justice system have a lawyer who listens to them
And a plan, real skills, and dependable adults who keep showing up,
Then they can protect their rights, stay connected to school and family, and build a positive future.
How it fits together
One circle, four stages.
Lawyers working alongside people who help with the rest of life is the model behind holistic defense, and mentors who have lived it are the model behind credible-messenger programs. Both are in the research below. This is how we put them together.
02 During
Skills and a trusted adult
Courses required and provided to all youth involved in the program, starting the day they sign up with the legal team.
- Becoming Core, eight weeksCurriculum ready
- Wellness, fitness and family tracks (MIND, MOVE, ROOTS)Planned
03 After
Coming home
A plan for the first 90 days, back to school with credits that count, and a way back into our courses.
- Reentry supportOpening
- RISE: academic and future readinessPlanned
04 Leading
Coming back to lead
Graduates return in paid roles, as assistant facilitators and community ambassadors, for the next young person.
- Becoming LeadersPlanned
- Becoming Corps, paid rolesPlanned
How we measure
| Measure | What it tracks | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a lawyer | Days from a call-back request to first contact from our legal team | Case log |
| Requests and cases | Requests received, screened, and accepted, and how many we had to refer on | Case log |
| Program participation | Attendance across the eight weeks of each course | Session logs |
| Reentry plans | Share of reentry plans completed, where offered | Reentry plan tracker |
| Connections that start | School, behavioral health, mentoring and work connections that actually began | Referral follow-up |
| Hope and confidence | Change in Children's Hope Scale score | Children's Hope Scale, validated, free |
| Trusted adult | Share who can name at least one trusted adult | Intake and exit survey |
| Youth and family voice | What young people and families tell us, voluntarily | Anonymous feedback |
| Case outcomes, in context | Reported only in total, never for one young person, and never as a promise | Case log |
| Staying power | Funding from many sources, and attorney caseloads we can actually carry | Budget and staffing |
What a course costs
$800 carries one young person through one course.
That is one eight-week course, start to finish. $2,400 carries them through all three courses in a year. Both are sponsorship prices, set by the board.
The legal work is budgeted separately. Attorneys, insurance and secure case systems cost more than a course, and we will publish those numbers once the board adopts them, rather than guess at them here.
The evidence base
Research. Clearly labeled.
Every finding below belongs to the researchers named beside it. None of it is ours. We designed the program to be consistent with this body of work, and we prove our own results locally or not at all.
Holistic defense, where lawyers work alongside social workers and advocates, cut the chance of a custodial sentence by 16% and sentence length by 24%, with no rise in re-offending.
Anderson, Buenaventura and Heaton, Harvard Law Review, 2019 (Bronx, 500,000+ cases)
Across 29 controlled trials, pushing young people through formal court processing increased later delinquency compared with diversion.
Petrosino et al., Campbell Collaboration, 2010
In Colorado juvenile diversion, 85% of young people completed the program and 11% re-offended within a year.
Colorado Division of Criminal Justice, FY2015-17
Mentoring by credible messengers cut felony reconviction by 69% at one year.
Urban Institute evaluation of NYC Arches, 2018
One stable, committed adult is the most common factor in children who overcome adversity.
Harvard University, Center on the Developing Child
Cognitive-behavioral group work cut violent-crime arrests 45 to 50% and raised graduation 12 to 19%.
University of Chicago Crime Lab, "Becoming a Man" randomized trials
Meta-analysis of youth mentoring across 70 studies and 25,286 young people.
Raposa, Rhodes et al., 2019
Social-emotional learning produced an 11-percentile academic gain across 213 programs.
Durlak et al., 2011, 270,000+ students