IPS Blog

“People are just not reaching us where we are at.  We want to be reached.” – Washington, D.C. focus group youth participant.

The mental well-being of our youth is crucial to achieving progress and prosperity in our communities. In Washington, DC, youth face particular challenges as disparities in resources and risks vary drastically in just a matter of miles. I wrote JPI’s report, Mindful of the Consequences: Improving the Mental Health for DC’s Youth Benefits the District, to show that current prevention and treatment services do not match the level of need and many youth are at risk for contact with the justice system due to untreated mental problems. To illustrate this, I mapped where arrested youth are coming from: predominately areas of low income and high rates of risk factors that impact mental well-being.

Some D.C. leaders will criticize this report citing the millions of dollars being spent already on mental health – as if that should be enough. My challenge to D.C. leaders is to admit that what is being done is not enough. Too many children are suffering from poor mental health while not receiving the attention needed. Too many youth are being misunderstood when their cry for help looks like aggression. Far too many are being penalized and channeled into a lifetime of involvement with the justice system just because it was too expensive to…invest in psychologists.

Melissa Neal, DrPH, is Senior Research Associate for the Justice Policy Institute. A longer version of this post appears on their Just Policy Blog.

DC youth between the ages of 16 to 19 are in crisis. They are experiencing unemployment levels 2.3 times the national average, reports the Justice Policy Institute in their latest research brief Working for a Better Future.

The brief takes a look at the collateral effects on youth who do not have access to jobs, such as higher rates of juvenile justice involvement, negative self-image and disconnection from their community. It also provides compelling evidence for the District to invest substantially more into dynamic long-term job training and placement assistance programs that incorporate job skills development, mentoring, job placement, and innovative program completion incentives like a GED and adjudication expungement. There is a generation of young people who are growing up without the skills and experiences to prepare them to contribute in meaningful ways to their lives, families and communities once they reach adulthood.

Often, I find myself in conversations with people about local DC youth and the popular perception is that these kids don't want to try and take advantage of what's here.  It's true that, on the surface, the District has a wealth of programs set up to "engage, train, and employ young people. Too often, however, this work is fragmented, uncoordinated, and focuses on the quantity of youth served over the quality of intervention." And once through these programs, young people have little to show for it and run the risk of having more encounters with the justice system, becoming a victim of crime, and limited and low-paid work opportunities. The District has a responsibility to make sure its youth in the juvenile are equipped to succeed by offering quality programming that promotes public safety and opportunities for self-development.  

The following are examples of successful programs operating in DC offering comprehensive programming that results in positive changes in the lives of DC youth:

• Youth Build U.S.A - serves low-income young people ages 16-24.
• YearUp - focuses on IT skills training and has a mission focused on helping young people overcome barriers to success due to criminal convictions.
• STRIVE - seeks to "transform the lives of at-risk populations by providing support and training that lead to livable wage employment and societal reintegration."
• JobCorps - a residential education and training program for youth ages 16-24

The report offers the following policy recommendations:

1. Invest more in quality employment programs for youth that includes efforts to link youth with work that interests them, has potential for advancement and development, and connects them to their community.
2. Dedicate more resources in the wards with the most need to access the job market.
3. Use evidence-based models that have been shown to positively impact youth.
4. Ensure that employer partners accept youth who have successfully completed job preparedness programs regardless of justice system contact.
5. Consider innovative incentives for increasing youth participation in programs.

It is said one has to get outside of Washington DC to get a proper perspective on the nation's problems, but the nation's capital provides plenty of insight into the challenges facing this country. Washington DC, like the country as a whole, is currently on a path of increasing division and inequality. The DC Fiscal Policy Institute notes that in Washington DC the average household income for the richest fifth increased by 81% or $78,900 from 1980 to 2006. For the middle fifth there was an increase of 31% or $11,000 and for the poorest fifth only a 3% increase equaling $400. In over 25 years, the richest of DC increased their household income by almost $80,000, while the poorest saw their increase disappear by spending an extra dollar a day over one year. Similarly, from 1980 to 2005 over 80% of the total increase in all of America's income went to the top 1 percent.

This growing economic inequality has strengthened racial and class divisions throughout the country, creating new dynamics in the defacto segregation that still exist in Washington DC and many of the country's urban centers. The new trend in the ongoing segregation of America is the urbanization of upper income whites and the suburbanization of the working class and disenfranchised minorities. The new trend is reversing the segregationist trends of the latter half of the 20th century...

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