Health & Medicine (HMPRG)

In Illinois? HMPRG Has Opening for Part-Time Policy Analyst for the Court Involved Youth Project's LGBTQ Task Force

(Download the Job Description for Part-Time Assistant Policy Analyst for the LGBTQ Task Force)   

Summary
The Court Involved Youth Project of Health & Medicine Research Policy Group (Health & Medicine) seeks a part-time (16 hours per week) Assistant Policy Analyst for a one-year period to support of the work of the Court Involved LGBTQ Youth Task Force.  Assistant Policy Analyst will work out of Health & Medicine’s office at 29 E. Madison, Ste. 602 in downtown Chicago.  Hourly salary is commensurate with experience.

Health & Medicine and the Court Involved Youth Project
Health & Medicine is a 30-year old independent policy organization whose mission is to promote social justice and challenge inequities in health and health care through research, education, policy advocacy and coalition building.  Health & Medicine envisions a society free of social inequities, with a healthy population accessing high quality health care, delivered in comprehensive health systems by culturally competent providers.
 
Since 2002, Health & Medicine has worked to address the broad health issues of court involved youth in the juvenile justice system in Illinois. The overarching goal of the Court Involved Youth Project is support the development of a juvenile justice system that contributes to the comprehensive, positive development of court involved youth.  To accomplish our goal, the Project collaborates with a broad based group of community and systems partners to advocate for policies, services, and programming that are effective because they are gender responsive, trauma informed and culturally competent.

Alongside the range of shared experiences of court involved youth are important distinctions.  Accounting always for the issues that contribute to the youth’s shared experiences (e.g. racism, poverty), Health & Medicine’s Court Involved Youth Project focuses its activities on the specific needs of youth in three subpopulations: girls, boys and LGBTQ youth.

Cook County Court Involved LGBTQ Youth Task Force
In October 2010, in partnership with Cook County Juvenile Probation, Health & Medicine’s Court Involved Youth Project convened the Cook County Court Involved LGBTQ Task Force (Task Force) to address the needs of court involved youth who identify as or are perceived to be LGBTQ.  Its key stakeholders – judges, attorneys, probation officers, secure facilities’ staff, community based providers and advocates – are committed to (1) researching and adapting promising practices relating to effective, professional and sensitive policies, training, programs and services and (2) coordinating the implementation of these practices across the system in furtherance of creating and sustaining a system that supports all youth.

Major responsibilities for this position include, under the supervision of the Senior Policy Analyst:
Support the Cook County Court Involved LGBTQ Youth Task Force in working to develop and advocate for passage of policies addressing the needs and rights of LGBTQ youth across the system.

• Coordinate biweekly in-person and telephonic meetings
• Researching and summarizing legal, medical, and other issues relating to court involved and LGBTQ youth
• Substantive policy and policy advocacy work (consistency; integrate changes to drafts; help strategize ways to advocate for passage)
• Co-author white paper on process, challenges, and successes of Task Force
• Partner with Senior Policy Analyst and Health & Medicine staff and consultants on fundraising activities including special events and grant-writing and reporting
• Other administrative and substantive duties as assigned.

Required experience and skills are:

• Passion for policy advocacy and broad based coalitions as tools for progressive social change
• Commitment to values and policies of Health & Medicine
• Sense of humor
• Familiarity with LGBTQ topics and issues, particularly as they relate to youth
• Experience in coordination, planning and/or management of projects
• Excellent written and interpersonal communication skills
• Capacity for, and comfort with, teamwork including working with volunteers

Preferred experience and skills are:

• Experience with and/or knowledge of the juvenile justice system in Illinois
• Experience evaluating programs
• Experience in coalition building
• Bilingual: English/Spanish

People interested in this position should send a cover letter and resume to Sarah Schriber, Senior Policy Analyst, Health & Medicine Policy Research Group  NO CALLS OR OFFICE VISITS PLEASE. 

Health & Medicine Policy Research Group  is an equal opportunity employer.  We recruit, hire, train and promote without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability or any other protected status.  People of color and transgender persons are especially encouraged to apply.         

(Download the Job Description for Part-Time Assistant Policy Analyst for the LGBTQ Task Force)  

 

Two Great Announcements about HMPRG’s LGBTQ Task Force!

The Court Involved Youth Project at Health & Medicine is thrilled to announce two exciting developments!

1. The Project’s Cook County Court Involved LGBTQ Youth Task Force has received a two-year grant from an anonymous donor in the amount of $110,000, which will support the time of Sarah Schriber, Project Coordinator and Task Force Community Convener, as well as enable the Task Force to hire a part-time person to work with Sarah to support its work.                                                                                                                    
2. Additionally, the Task Force is now an award-winning Task Force!  The Alliance of Illinois Judges has given the Task Force its Honorary Chair Award, the first time it has bestowed the honor on a group and not a jurist.  Sarah and Carmen Casas, Juvenile Probation Supervisor and Task Force System Convener, will receive the award on behalf of the Task Force at the Alliance’s annual officer’s installation reception on June 15, 2011.

The Task Force was convened to address the needs of court involved youth who identify as or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning.  Its key stakeholders – judges, attorneys, probation officers, secure facilities’ staff, community based providers and advocates – are committed to (1) researching and adapting promising practices relating to effective, professional and sensitive policies, training, programs and services and (2) coordinating the implementation of these practices across the system in furtherance of creating and sustaining a system that supports all youth. 

Funding and the recognition resulting from the Honorary Chair Award will contribute to pushing forward this important work.

For more information about the Task Force,  or the Court Involved Youth Inititiative please email Sarah. 

Join Us for a Juvenile Justice Zines Release Party

Join us on Thursday, May 12, for a celebration launching two zine series that address the history and current state of juvenile justice!

The Children and Family Justice Center and the Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Action Network of the Models for Change Initiative, with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, are releasing a graphic novel "Know Your Rights" informing Illinois youths of their rights in the juvenile justice system.

The graphic novel was created as part of a family engagement project that relied on youth and family focus groups. The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Project NIA, and the Chicago Freedom School will release a series of five zines featuring the voices of those affected by the criminal legal system and also tackling community issues: the History of the Juvenile Court, Girls in the System, Youth Voices (of the Incarcerated), the School-to-Prison Pipeline, and the Prison-Industrial Complex.

This zine series was developed in connection with “Unfinished Business–Juvenile Justice,” the community-curated exhibit at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, on view through August 2011.

We want to share these zines with youth and those who care about reforming the juvenile justice and criminal legal systems. The work of creating a more just society continues, and we can all be part of the transformative social change through creative words and images.

We hope to see you there:

THURSDAY MAY 12, 2011 5:30 – 7:30PM Jane Addams Hull House Museum 800 S. Halsted St. (Dining Hall)

Zine Distribution & Reception Refreshments & Conversation

Co-sponsored with Project NIA, the Chicago Freedom School, the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University Law School and the Models for Change Initiative

See the attached for more information:

• Event description
• PDF Spanish versions of the Know Your Rights zine
• PDF English version of the Know Your Rights Zine
• Flyer to distribute and post

HMPRG's LGBT Task Force Receiving National Notice

The Health & Medicine recently-formed LGBT Task Force is a national leader in identifying causes and remedies to the growing numbers of LGBT youth in the court system. This article in The Public Intellectual  explores the problem and identifies our program as holding national promise.

LGBT kids in the prison pipeline

Why we punish LGBT kids — especially when they’re not white– and how we might stop.

By Angela Irvine

Angela was the Principal Investigator on the Annie E. Casey Foundation national survey of 2,200 LGBTQ youth in the juvenile justice system. This article draws on that research, which also appeared in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. Angela is the Associate Director at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

When we talk about disparities in detention and sentencing, we’re usually thinking about race as the cause: youth of color do make up 65 percent of the juvenile detention population. But our child welfare, education, and criminal justice systems unwittingly conspire to create different outcomes for LGBT people too.
 
LGBT kids and adults face harsher punishment than straight people for the same crimes. Young people who aren’t hetero are more often expelled from school, arrested, and convicted of a juvenile offense compared to their straight counterparts. At least 15 percent of the population in juvenile detention is LGBT. Dice the numbers according to gender and the statistics get worse: 27 percent of girls booked into detention sites across the country disclosed lesbian or bisexual sexual orientations or otherwise failed to conform to expectations of how girls should behave. Like kids of color, LGBT youth are punished more often than their straight peers.   Download article

HMPRG's Sarah Schriber quoted in Article on the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center

The following article quotes Sarah Schriber, HMPRG's Senior Policy Consultant on Court Involved Youth. (Published by Chicago News Cooperative -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization providing local coverage of Chicago and the surrounding area for The New York Times. More From the Chicago News Cooperative »)

Uncertainty at Juvenile Jail in Wake of Latest Lawsuit

By RACHEL CROMIDAS

Published: March 10, 2011

For much of the past two decades, the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center has been considered a prime example of what is wrong with the nation’s juvenile justice system. Three times in the last 10 years, federal court actions have taken aim at patronage, overcrowding and unhealthy and unsafe conditions.

Earl Dunlap, who became the jail’s transitional administrator in 2007, said he was combating an entrenched culture of mismanagement. He has worked to address the problems, in part by firing 100 workers and hiring 400 new guards and staff members. Since February, he also has faced the added pressure of knowing that a pending federal court ruling could undo much of his work.

During a hearing last month in which the Teamsters union challenged Mr. Dunlap’s right to make some of the personnel changes, a federal judge questioned whether his “mere existence” as transitional administrator was legal. “I don’t understand how the transitional administrator could have any rights under Illinois law,” the judge, Frank H. Easterbrook of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said at the hearing.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois said Mr. Dunlap’s presence at the jail was necessary to bring the facility up to the standards mandated by a 2002 settlement of an A.C.L.U. lawsuit charging overcrowding, unhealthy conditions, inmate abuse and other violations of inmates’ rights. When Cook County was declared in violation of federal law in 2007, the Federal District Court appointed Mr. Dunlap to run the jail.

The county filed a supplemental brief on March 8 affirming its support of the A.C.L.U.’s position. The brief also said the chief judge of Cook County Circuit Court, who will appoint the jail’s next superintendent, “does not desire to appoint his own administrator until the temporary administrator has completed his efforts.”

Ben Wolf, the associate legal director for the Illinois A.C.L.U., said Mr. Dunlap had succeeded where others had not. “We finally made real progress starting to improve conditions there,” Mr. Wolf said.

Among other changes, Mr. Dunlap reorganized the staff to manage inmates in smaller groups, what he calls “facilities within facilities.” And he required that those staff members who work directly with inmates hold college degrees.

If the court ruling eliminates Mr. Dunlap’s position, advocates for inmates say, momentum may be lost in other areas, including reducing use of solitary confinement and ending abuse among employees and inmates.

The Teamsters declined to comment.

Advocates for inmates fear that the lawsuit will result in a return to conditions before the A.C.L.U. first brought suit in 1999 when the 500-bed jail, the largest single-site youth detention facility in the nation, was at times overcrowded by more than 300 inmates. They also say that rats and cockroaches ran rampant through the building, and that youths in solitary confinement could tear loose tiles off the ceilings to use as weapons.

“There is currently a huge feeling of threat that Earl Dunlap is going to be out of there,” said Sarah Schriber, a juvenile justice researcher. “That gives me nightmares.”