Your donation supports our re-entry, diversion, and work with incarcerated youth and young adults. Thank you!
For more than 25 years, InsideOUT Writers (IOW) has led Los Angeles County in providing over 26,000 youth healing-informed creative writing classes inside juvenile halls. Then in 2009, IOW began providing re-entry case management services to help system-impacted youth navigate public and private essential services in housing, health care, drug and alcohol treatment assistance, mental health, workforce development, education, and much more. Many of our youth suffer from either childhood trauma, abusive households, undiagnosed mental illness, or are foster youth who are referred to law enforcement as a form of punishment by their adoptive parents. Whatever the root cause of incarceration, the fact remains that many of them never received the help they needed prior to being incarcerated. And that’s where IOW comes in!
Recently, we added The Youth Diversion Program. This new program at IOW is aimed at diverting youth who are at risk of juvenile justice involvement from initial contact with the juvenile justice system using approaches that are evidence-based, culturally relevant, trauma-informed, and developmentally appropriate. This is supported by a contract with the Los Angeles County Youth Development Department (YDD). Our case management services under this contract offer developmentally appropriate diversion options that are restorative in nature. Within our first year, IOW has worked with over 61 youth, and anticipates even more youth to serve in 2024. A donation of any amount will help us greatly to continue this much needed work in Los Angeles County.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Rodrigo Guardado at rodrigo@insideoutwriters.org.
Thank you for your support.
With gratitude and appreciation,
The InsideOUT Writers Team