iMOVe - In My Own Voice

Transcription

iMOVe
In My Own Voice
Community Justice Society
Program Contacts and Partners
Yvonne Atwell
- Executive Director, project sponsor working to provide
program delivery oversight and financial management.
Worked with community based organizations for more than 30 years.
Sobaz Benjamin -
Founder and Program Director, Halifax based filmmaker and
educator. Has over 17 years experience using social media as educational and
engagement tools building relationships and shaping the identities of program
participants in the contexts of community and social development .
-iMOVe- has worked directly with a range of government and community partners
including: Justice Canada, Nova Scotia Department of Justice, NS Barristers
Society, Halifax Regional Police, Department of Community Service, the IWK
Children’s Hospital, Halifax Regional Municipality, the Nova Scotia Youth Facility,
Capital Health, Youthscape, Department of Education, The East Coast Forensic
Hospital, etc.
iMOVe-Seeking the Way 2011
Both CJS and iMOVe are committed to working with government partners to
meaningfully address the over representation of African Canadian Youth in
our Justice System and to strengthen Nova Scotia’s ability to reach these
youth and serve their needs in a culturally competent manner.
Vision:
To eliminate the involvement of youth in the criminal justice system.
Mission:
To provide a community-based restorative justice process, offering
meaningful ways to repair the harms caused by youth crime and restoring
positive relationships among youth in conflict with the law, victims of youth
crime, and our community.
To foster and nurture restorative justice, the Society, to educate and
advocate community engagement in crime prevention and the building of
positive relationships among all community members.
In my Own Voice (iMOVe): Seeking the Way
is truly an innovative youth directed and youth driven social media and peer
mentorship program.
The goal is to help young offenders visualize, want and believe in the possibility of
more of themselves and their lives.
It is an art-based program for high risk youth and incarcerated youth (ages 12-18) in
conflict with their communities and the law.
iMOVe has also developed several community based programs working with a diverse
group of youth within diverse communities.
iMOVe MENTORS
In January 2009, a disparate group of young people began to
form because one promise was made:
Their voices would be heard.
Male, female, black, white, aboriginal all gathered—each
with his or her personal story of hardship, sadness,
frustration, abandonment or fear.
Even as their courage and optimism shone through, it
remains clear that current influences and past events keep
them constantly at risk.
iMOVe Participants;
iMOVe works with youth from diverse backgrounds,
experiences, lifestyles, etc.
MENTAL HEALTH
PROFILE OF
PARTICIPANTS
iMOVe is currently
working with young
people who are dealing
with mental health
issues such as:
Depression
Suicidal Ideation
Anxiety/Panic Disorder
Bipolar disorder
Attention Deficit and
Hyper Activity Disorder
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
JUSTICE PROFILE OF
PARTICIPANTS
CONTINUED
REFERALS
Young offenders charged
iMOVe currently is
with
processing referrals
Drug possession
from organizations like:
Weapons possession
Nova Scotia Parole
Substance Abuse
Office,
Public intoxication (alcohol
IWK,
and drugs)
Community Justice
Assault
Society and
Theft
Self referrals
Theft with weapons
Gang Affiliation
And more serious offences
such as murder
Current iMOVe Caseload:
Reintegration: Youth released from the NSYF.
PROFILE
Part of IWK case management team
 Weekly meetings
 Working with youth at iMOVe Office
 Producing weekly Radio Broadcasts (Youth Now Radio)
 Work experience (Office Administration)
 Training (Audio and Video Production)
 One-on-one mentoring, and redirection

Caseload Continued…
Engagement and Redirection
Youth with drug and alcohol addiction issues
PROFILE

iMOVe is part of the case management team for CHOICES –Weekly
meetings
 Attending Court as Youth Support
 Restorative Justice Conferences
 Training (Audio and Video Production)
 Work experience
 One-on-one mentoring
Case Management
Self Referrals - Engagement and Redirection
PROFILE
Attending Court as Youth Support
 Working with Centreline Music Studio (Audio Production)
 Working with Youth Now Radio
 Training (Video Production)
 One on one work mentoring

Case Management & Training;
Halifax Youth Attendant Centre Referrals
PROFILE
Youth at risk
 Not attending school
 Pregnant
Suffering from Depression
 Substance abuse
 Suicidal ideation


How iMOVe works:
Approach, Values, Mission
In My Own Voice has proved to be an innovative program geared solely to
engage today’s youth at risk, offering creative, constructive, and crucial outlets
for their boundless energies and their youthful exuberance.
iMOVe uses an approach that empowers youth participants to be co-owners of
the initiative and has since 2009, been able to develop iMOVe as an innovative,
mobile, surrogate family unit.
The Surrogate Family Unit is a context where young offenders and youth
at risk can discover the reasons and learn and figure out the strategies they
need to change and improve their lives from each other, from their peers who
look, dress and sound like them.
By creating space for communal ownership, iMOVe has created space
for individual leaders to grow, evolve, develop and emerge.
Goals of iMOVe:

Reducing Recidivism: helping young offenders see that there
are more positive options available to them and to support them
not to return to gang activity.
Mediating personal restoration: assist these youth in
visualizing, wanting and believing in the possibility of more of
themselves by exposing them to a range of innovative and
exciting programming options that will help them to express and
discover their gifts.

Facilitators reintegration: supporting the development of
cultural pride through dialogue narrative inquiry and social
support which will help marginalized youth better cope with the
realities of systemic racism and protect them from a return to
high risk behaviours such as gang activities.

Nova Scotia Youth Facility (NSYF)
Waterville, NS
The Program Director, Sobaz Benjamin, has been traveling to the
NSYF to offer an innovative media program to the young offenders
who are in custody at the facility.
Many of these youth are high-risk offenders and many have gang affiliations.
The NSYF is the sole custody facility for youth in Nova Scotia serving boys and girls
ages 12-19. Thus, all of the Province’s highest risk and most dangerous youth
are congregated in this single location.
iMOVe continues to work in collaboration with staff
from NSYF. iMOVe has been invited back to begin working with the
Nova Scotia Youth Facility in October 2012. We will be running two
programs consecutively with two different populations. We will be
working with youth from the 24/7 Program and youth inmates from
the Nova Scotia Youth Facility. This years Program will be focused on
their life stories using animation.
Expectations and Outcomes;
Self awareness, brings agency, agency brings responsibility. Self
awareness, agency and responsibility brings confidence, the
confidence that you have the power to transform and shape
your life. Our life story (the story we tell ourselves about
ourselves) is written between the things that happen to us. It
is here that we can take control of our lives. This is the
iMOVe mission.
 The size of the population that will been impacted by iMOVe
and it’s mission over the course of the program:
Between 60-80 youth.
iMOVe expects to lessen the risk of re-offending for
youth participants who are at risk or are involved
with guns, gangs and/or drug activity, and who are
involved in the justice system.
What iMOVe did:
Programs, Successes, Experiences;
iMOVe Participants are involved in many exercises and activities
that include: Radio Production, Video Production, Audio
Production and Theatre Production. They are all geared toward
youth authoring their stories. They are creating self narratives
that tell the story of:
 Who they have been
 Who they are
 Who they would like to become.
Youth engagement is achieved by the opportunity to become
producers of popular culture. iMOVe Youth Participants
rather than simply being consumers of popular culture use
their life stories to produce popular culture and are
empowered by the sharing of their stories with an
audience. Their narratives create the self awareness that
can bring about the possibility of change and
transformation.
Storytelling
iMOVe:
Includes performance art, music, video technology radio and
animation. These stories are shared within the NSYF with
a particular emphasis on animation in year III Year I was
video based, Year II Animation based. participants.
iMOVe creates a context where young offenders can learn
and discover the reasons they need to change and
improve their lives from each other, from their peers who
look, dress and sound like them.
Centreline Music Studio
In a large, secured and organized music studio in the community of
Uniake Square. Working in collaboration with the Metropolitan
Regional Housing Authority and HRM Police.
iMOVe Program Director directly involved in Youth Mentorship and
Leadership training.
Weekly (Thursday and Friday) Audio and Video Programming
Sessions with youth from the inner city community of Uniake Square
and beyond.
iMOVe works with approximately 25 youth on a weekly bases through
our Centreline Music project.
Youth participants range from age 6-19.
Youth NOW! Radio
As part of Youth Engagement and Redirection, many of the
youth are invited to work on weekly segments for the
Youth Now! Radio Program. This is an open panel for youth
at risk to help foster growth and understanding. This radio
show is broadcast weekly from Dalhousie University's
Community, Campus Radio Station CKDU 88.1 FM
Why iMOVe?
A criminal lifestyle for
many is seen as the only
means available for the
acquisition of power,
status and wealth.
iMOVe offers these youth
the opportunity to
experience living and
interacting
within a positive peer
culture, learning the
social skills, attitudes and
values necessary for
success following their
release from the Nova Scotia
Youth Facility.
A CORE
iMOVe
VALUE:
THE POWER OF CHOICE
iMOVe is an exercise in self awareness and presents youth with the
challenge of recognizing that we can control the way
we react to what life thrusts upon us. Self awareness
does not guarantee that people will choose positively
rather than negatively what is does make possible is
that youth will be far more likely to take responsibility
for their actions. This is not simply about placing
blame at the doorstep of the individual. It is about
recognizing our own agency, that we can have an
impact (both positively and negatively) on the
outcomes of our lives.
We are what we choose;
Although we cannot control
For young people who are born into
much of what happens to us
marginalized and stigmatized
we can control how we react
communities, who are casualties of
to what happens to us.
intergenerational poverty and
dysfunctional families, life may seem
Hitting someone because
totally out of their control. Recognizing
you feel cornered is still a
this often makes us feel defenceless and
choice, albeit a negative
powerless.
choice.
The iMOVe message to
From an adolescent position of emotional
and physical uncertainties to think that we
youth is that we are not
can control how we react to life’s
what happens to us but
circumstances seems unrealistic.
rather, we are what happens
“He cornered me I had no choice but to hit
between the things that
him!”
happen to us:
In the face of conflict, pain and trauma,
choice is often the first causality as youth
at risk and young offenders seek to
understand and explain their actions.
we are what
we choose.
Future Vision for iMOVe:
iMOVe is convinced that the combination of mentorship, arts
engagement, skills building, self-exploration and community
recognition and reconnection, will have the combined effect of
reducing the lure of gang involvement and engagement with highrisk lifestyles which result in the negative spiral which makes these
youth, especially those from African Nova Scotian communities,
vulnerable to these negative choices.
Youth Engagement
Youth engagement is achieved through the opportunity to
become producers of popular culture.
iMOVe Youth Participants rather than simply being
consumers of popular culture use their life stories to
produce popular culture and are empowered by the sharing
of their stories with an audience. Their narratives create
the self awareness that can bring about the possibility of
change and transformation.
http://inmyownvoice.ca/
Meaningful Invo lvem ent;
iMOVe: Upcoming Documentary:
In the upcoming months, iMOVe will begin producing a Youth Documentary on
the Social Determinants of Health.
iMOVe is currently working in partnership with the Department of Health
Promotion and Protection
iMOVe: Centreline Music Studio:
A music studio in the community of Uniake Square. Participants work in
collaboration with the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority.
iMOVe: Conference:
Two iMOVe Youth will be attending and presenting (November 28th 2011)
at the
Exploring Cultural Competence and Nova Scotia’s Criminal Justice System:
Approaches and Dialogue for Change Conference.
BUILDING LEADERSHIP
•
•
•
•

iMOVe: CONFERENCES:
Five iMOVe Youth attended and presented at this conference in Ottawa
African Canadian Legal Clinic: Anti Black Hate Conference
(March 12 2009)
Five iMOVe Youth attended and presented at this conference in Halifax
Nova Scotia Department of Justice and the Community justice Society
Building Cultural Competence: A workshop on Afri-centric Philosophy and Practice
(October 27th – 28th 2009)
Two Youth attended and presented at Justice Canada's
Youth net Workshop – Youth Justice and Mental Health in Ottawa
(December 8 -9, 2010)
Two iMOVe Youth attended and presented at this conference in Halifax
International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) in partnership with Nova Scotia Restorative Justice (NSRJ) –
Community University Research Alliance (CURA) 14 th World Conference
(June 15-17, 2011)
Two iMOVe Youth attended and presented at the conference in Halifax
Exploring Cultural Competence and Nova Scotia’s Criminal Justice System: Approaches and Dialogue for Change
Conference.
(November 28th 2011)
iMOVe:
Seeking the Way
The goal is to help young offenders
visualize, want and believe in the
possibility of more of themselves, their
lives and their communities.
Bad things do indeed happen to good people but we can control how we react to life’s
challenges. Working with iMOVe youth will discover this through the telling of their life
story. Youth are able to see the patterns of choice in their lives. They are able to see
both the negative and positive choices they have made and the impact of both on their
lives.
YOUR QUESTIONS?

iMOVe - In My Own Voice

Transcription

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