Lashawntay T. Howard Youth Center

Since 2012, The Lashawntay T. Howard Youth Offender Center (LTHYOC) serves Miami-Dade County's most vulnerable neighborhoods, Liberty City, Brownsville, and Little Haiti. The System-Involved Youth(SIY) Program engages 40 SIY aged 13 to 17 involved in the juvenile criminal system or classified as high-risk (gang-related and at-risk; are low-income public housing residents). Our (SIY) program uses proven, research-based interventions to address personal, family, and community issues contributing to juvenile delinquency, gun violence, and gang activity. Establishing core relationships and promoting equity using Search Institute practices and evidence-based methods. Building healthy developmental relationships with youth provides benefits beyond the relationship itself. We know that youth with solid developmental relationships benefit in their learning and development, so we created the Intentional Relationships Workshop, which provides the following:

 • Increased academic motivation; 

• Increased social-emotional growth and learning (self-management, relationship skills, responsible decision-making, social awareness, and self-awareness);

• Increased sense of personal responsibility; and 

• Reduced engagement in a variety of risky behaviors. 

Educators and leaders must be intentional and inclusive when building relationships with youth. By removing teens and young adults from the streets in the afternoon and placing them in a safe environment, the Florida judicial system will be relieved of some of its burdens, and they will have a better life. LTHYOC uses a therapeutic community model to:

1. Divert at-risk youth away from the juvenile justice system,

2. Promote youth voice and choice: planning is grounded in the perspective of the youth, and it provides them with choices and options that reflect their values.

3. Reduce the number of chronic juvenile offenders, and

4. Increase protective factors for our target population by encouraging empathetic communication and activities on positive body image, self-efficacy, relationships, and goal-setting skills.

5. Provide wraparound services and community outreach projects.

LTHYOC is a significant neighborhood and community asset because it provides targeted holistic wraparound services, including violence prevention and intervention, trauma­-focused therapy, work readiness, job training, substance abuse prevention, and intervention; and also because it has a proven track record of community organizing.

LTHYOC aims to prevent violence impacting adolescents and young adults to decrease the high rates of violence (e.g., in communities of color) and sustain widespread impact and reach of violence prevention strategies. The second step to reach this goal will be the LTHYOC Collaborative, working to identify risk and protective factors for violence further. This will lead to implementing community-level prevention strategies that target schools and whole communities to decrease the risk factors for or protect people from violence. These strategies are implemented at a societal level to create a climate where violence is discouraged and positive social norms are encouraged. Then, as these strategies are proven successful and any needed modifications applied, the final step is to implement them across MDC to ensure widespread adoption of change.  

To stop gun violence, young people and our communities require a secure place to heal and process their traumatic experiences and the numerous underlyingcauses that lead to violence and hostility. We need community-based models for violence intervention that provide those impacted, particularly young individuals,the tools they need to grieve, heal, find job opportunities, and transform into changed people and community leaders who can choose to stop the violence.