Over the past month, we checked in with our 2024 grantees to learn how their funded programs, projects, and initiatives are progressing – and to better understand the impact they’re making across Los Angeles. Now, we are excited to share these interviews, with stories of growth, challenges, and community transformation.

California Conference for Equality and Justice (CCEJ) received funding through the LA2050 Grants Challenge from the Goldhirsh Foundation to support its restorative justice diversion programming for youth. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation with their team.

LA2050: Your Restorative Youth Diversion Program is built on a unique foundation of trust and healing. Tell us about how that works, and how you have extended it to the new Career and Education Pathway program funded via LA2050.

California Conference for Equality and Justice: We were recently told that CCEJ’s process is very sincere, and that is exactly what we strive for in our relationship with the young people who are referred to our programs. Our diversion program takes into account that a young person may not trust this process at the start because they've been referred by the police – they’ve either been told that they've done something wrong, which can feel shameful or hard, or they don't understand or agree with what they're being cited. When a young person comes in they may be feeling at a disadvantage, that they're not going to be believed or listened to, so our program is founded on the importance of youth voices. Everyone makes mistakes and we should all be given the chance to take accountability for our actions.

Young people are welcomed into our program in a way that they might not have been had they gone to court, or if their parents had to pick them up at a police station. We think that the foundation of trust and healing is number one, and the belief that young people deserve respect and the opportunity to speak for themselves, no matter the incident. If they harm someone, let them make it right outside of a system focused on punishment.

Our case managers and our staff show this care and sincerity in our interactions with young people, which comes through in the feedback that CCEJ receives. At the end of the program, we survey young people about their experience and what they learned. We ask if they thought it was fair, if they feel like they had an opportunity to express themselves, and if they were able to hear from the person harmed. We also want to know if they feel like they were supported by us and if they were connected to any resources they needed. We believe that people have the opportunity to make amends and have a second chance. Being a part of CCEJ’s diversion program actually creates more chances for them.

Making amends is also at the center of our career and education program that we’re designing. We believe that just because you made a mistake in society, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't have exposure to different educational and career opportunities. You still should be able to learn what it means to be a graphic designer, or a nurse's assistant, or a video game publisher. These opportunities should be presented to a young person, generously, and with respect. The mistakes that they have made shouldn't put them in a category of not having opportunity to succeed in life..

Some examples of direct feedback from CCEJ’s youth participants, in their own words:

• “I feel this process was fair because it gives youth the opportunity to correct their mistakes without being put on record.”
• “CCEJ’s diversion program gave me the opportunity to better my life over a mistake that has happened, and I am thankful for everything.”
• “CCEJ allowed me to have a second chance but also taught me the harm that I was doing to others.”
• “This program changed my habits and developed my mindset to become a better person, to do good things in life, and to get good jobs.”
• “As a result of CCEJ’s program, I was able to fix my mistakes. I always think before doing something now, and I am more open now.”

LA2050: What do you want our local leaders – both in the civic and impact sectors – to understand about what restorative justice looks like in practice?

California Conference for Equality and Justice: We really believe that restorative justice – and restorative practices – is something we all should strive for because it is focused on relationships. Restorative practices are based on curiosity and really living into the value of care for others, and the care that we must have to be in a relationship. Herein we can understand where someone's coming from, and give them grace, patience, and all the things that they need. We all are human; we all have lives that will make us frustrated, angry, and anxious on certain days. But If we don't understand those elements of a person, it's really hard to engage. So we're using these practices to engage with young people and what we're seeing is a great benefit to prioritizing care and curiosity in relationships. In life people want to feel seen, heard, and understood, and we think restorative justice is the channel that will get us there.

We want to highlight that restorative justice processes take time. The idea that there is a quick fix for accountability is not something we have found to be true. It takes time for people to come to realizations about themselves and it takes time for other people to hear an apology, some type of reparation. That is the first thing we would say to local leaders. Another thing to understand is that going to jail doesn't always ensure that someone won’t commit harm again. So we try to create alternative ways for people who are at the beginning of their lives to have the opportunity to reflect. We need humane alternatives to incarceration.

LA2050: What do you hope to achieve in the last six months of the grant, and how can the broader LA2050 community support?

California Conference for Equality and Justice: This is adjacent to the diversion work, but our hope is that we as a community can really engage in deep listening and deep trust of young people's experiences. If youth are saying they are feeling fear, if young people are saying they're concerned about our political climate and the world, we want the parents and adults in their worlds to listen to them because that is their experience right now.

One of our larger CCEJ commitments is to incorporate even more deep listening with youth. We would say we're pretty good at it, but we could always be better. We want to give the youth we work with more opportunities to share their thoughts. We’ve started these Saturday workshops to see if youth come to the CCEJ office when they're not required by a court mandate, and that's worked out well. This will lead us to a more formal program related to the career and education pathway, so we’re hoping we'll be able to engage a cohort of youth in the next six months. We’re also working on exposing the young people in our programs to opportunities where they can be leaders in their community, which is one of our core values. At the recent CCEJ convening we hosted a panel where we featured CCEJ youth leaders speaking about topics that they feel passionate about, and the adults in the room learned a lot from their perspectives. .

Our own sincere hope is that when you talk to us in six months, we'll have more examples of how the young folks in our programs have been out in front, talking about their experiences more directly with our community.

Interview Participants:

Reena Hajat Carroll, Executive Director

Jessy Needham, Chief Development Officer

Learn more about CCEJ:

• CCEJ Podcast episode on Restorative Youth Diversion
• Youth Voices Panel (video)