Freedom 4 Youth – Building Community with Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Freedom 4 Youth’s mission is to uplift and empower youth to build safe and compassionate communities.

Our Mission

Freedom 4 Youth’s mission is to uplift and empower youth that are involved in or impacted by the criminal legal system through healing-centered, restorative, and youth-led solutions. Through legal advocacy, diversion, culturally responsive programs, and case management support, we disrupt cycles of criminalization and address the root cause of substance use—creating real pathways to accountability, healing, long-term stability, and transformative systems change.

WE EMPOWER YOUTH AND BUILD COMMUNITY THROUGH OUR 4 PILLARS

Mentorship

Freedom 4 Youth Advocates are peer facilitators of all Blueprints 4 Freedom (programs). Advocates meet weekly with transitional-aged youth inside local detention facilities, at the Freedom 4 Youth Center, and in the community to provide case management, positive peer associations, tutoring, career, and educational counseling. Freedom 4 Youth trains and supervises community members as para-professionals with an emphasis on trauma-informed and trauma-responsive care. Reach out on the contact page to learn more about how to become a Freedom 4 Youth Advocate.

Blueprints 4 Freedom

Blueprints 4 Freedom direct service efforts work in support of at-promise transitional aged youth (13-26) and their families alongside community partners, and referring agencies (behavioral wellness, public defender, probation, etc.), to address their immediate-short and long-term needs. Through peer-to-peer mentorship and strengths-based case management youth are empowered to develop action plans that promote goal attainment. In addition, hands-on interactive peer-to-peer workshops designed to empower youth through building their written and oral communication skill sets, along with their emotional competencies, while developing their personal wellness, career, and academic goals.

Energized Community Network

We collaborate with youth who are system involved, families, community-based organizations, Universities, and Community Colleges, government agencies (behavioral wellness, public defender, probation, etc.), and implement innovative solutions for the complete wellness of our youth and our communities. Thanks to the diversity of our relationships we are able to support community members from within and independent of local institutions. Freedom 4 Youth mobilizes resources within the community to ensure that community members have access to fundamental needs (housing, food, clothing, healthcare, etc.) before anything else.

Advocacy

We believe that youth play a vital role in social justice reform. We recognize the power of storytelling to shift the public’s narrative of youth in the system and to champion the importance of investing in them. We empower youth with the tools necessary to create liberatory systemic change, particularly around the intersections of criminal and racial justice issues. The advocacy team focuses on local and statewide policy legislative change. This includes letter writing, direct policy advocacy, and research, publishing an advocacy newsletter, supporting local direct actions with community partners, celebrating youth accomplishments such as birthdays and graduations, and honoring youth that have passed.

WE EMPOWER YOUTH AND BUILD COMMUNITY THROUGH

Mentorship

F4Y Advocate mentors are peer facilitators of all Blueprint 4 Freedom (programs). Mentors meet weekly with youth both inside Los Prietos Boys Camp and in the community to provide positive peer associations, tutoring, career and educational counseling. F4Y trains and supervises students as para-professionals with an emphasis on trauma informed care.

Blueprints 4 Freedom

Hands-on interactive peer-to-peer workshops designed to empower youth through building their written and oral communication skill sets, along with their emotional competencies, while developing their personal wellness, career, and academic goals.

Energized Community Network

Collaborating across lines with youth, families, Universities, Community Colleges, government agencies and community-based organizations to implement innovative solutions for the complete wellness of our youth and our communities.