The Virginia General Assembly has given bipartisan approval to a measure one advocate believes could lead to significant changes to the Commonwealth's youth justice system.

The bill outlined how management of the state's juvenile justice system could transition from the Public Safety Secretary to the Health Secretary.

Valerie Slater, executive director of the group RISE for Youth, said it could mark an important step away from Virginia's current punitive approach to youth justice. She pointed out many kids in the system have mental health conditions not addressed by the current model.

"And we are still treating them as if there is a public safety threat," Slater asserted. "When in actuality, we need to begin to address the traumas and begin to heal children."

The bill would establish a work group to research the feasibility and benefits of the transition. If Gov. Glenn Youngkin signs the measure, the group would then issue a final report by November on what the process could look like.

Slater argued Virginia's current juvenile justice model was built for a pre-pandemic world. She noted children have undergone new stressors in recent years, and the Commonwealth's current system fails to account for it.

"The pandemic, of course, it mandated and necessitated that we take certain steps," Slater acknowledged. "But we've forgotten that those steps are going to have very real ramifications on our youngest citizens: our children. "

A nonpartisan audit commission report found the number of kids in Virginia's juvenile justice system dropped from more than 9,500 in 2011 to about 3,000 last year, largely due to diversion programs, but Black children were referred into the court system at a significantly higher rate than their white counterparts.

Nationally, a new report from The Sentencing Project revealed U.S. children were locked up in juvenile facilities nearly 250,000 times in 2019, and Black and Latinx kids were 50% more likely to face incarceration.

Josh Rovner, senior advocacy associate for The Sentencing Project and the report's author, said detaining kids can have lasting impacts.

"For one, there's self-harm. Children are at a much higher risk of suicide having been detained," Rovner explained. "Not surprisingly, kids who are detained are much less likely to graduate from high school."

The report noted the total number of kids in detention dropped between 2010 and 2019, when arrests of children also dropped by nearly 60%.

Nonprofits working with foster care children want them to know services are available to help them navigate life once they are out of the system.

The latest statistics from the Arkansas Department of Human Services show more than 3,400 children are in foster care. Some young people are never adopted or reunited with family members and age out of the system.

Jordan Otero Foster, LEAD ambassador for the nonprofit Foster Success, now 25, entered foster care when he was 17 and said three things contributed to his successful transition into adulthood.

"Relationships with supportive adults who will last far beyond our time in foster care, financial resources that meet the various needs of young people while we pursue our higher education, the workforce and as we find our footing as young adults, and the third way to accomplish this is to ensure that all young people have access of a network to peers and supportive adults," Foster outlined.

He pointed out many young adults struggle once they leave the foster care system because they do not know about available programs or support systems.

In Arkansas, more than 1,000 children in foster care have been there for more than a year. The department of Human Services tries to reunite children with family members when possible.

Hope Cooper, campaign manager for the advocacy group Journey to Success, said her organization works with lawmakers to create legislation to address adversities foster care kids face.

"Young people in foster care face additional challenges in completing school on time," Cooper explained. "They're often coping with some mental health issues. There are other unmet needs, and as young people get older, into their young adult years, many face housing instability or challenges with getting connected to work."


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Missouri has stepped up to fight childhood hunger by providing food aid over the summer for kids who rely on school meals for nutrition.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's SuN Bucks program, launched this year, provides eligible families with a one-time, $120 EBT card per child to help cover grocery costs during the summer months.

Christine Woody, food security policy manager for the nonprofit Empower Missouri, said she is happy the program is available for families. However, she noted Missouri state departments involved in distributing the benefits had delays, meaning kids needing summer food aid did not receive it until fall this year.

"I'm just grateful that Missouri did it and I think the department had a lot of lessons learned, so 2025 is going to be a whole different experience," Woody asserted. "I'm hopeful that the kids will actually get the benefits in the summer when their families actually need it."

Families have 122 days to use the one-time SuN Bucks benefit after receiving their card. Research shows almost half of the children in Missouri rely on school meals for nutrition.

The USDA recently announced an additional $1.3 billion investment to strengthen local food systems. Woody explained Missouri's SuN Bucks program is based on the federal P-EBT initiative, which aimed to support children who lost access to meals during COVID-19 school closures.

She added her organization and others led a grassroots effort to get Missouri on board.

"Praise the Lord, they agreed to fund and run the program and there's funding to run it again in 2025," Woody emphasized.

The Show-Me State could receive more than $92 million in an economic boost generated from the SuN Bucks initiative.


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Five years ago, Minnesota established a program to bolster well-being metrics for children of color and young Native American kids. Today, fund recipients are sharing their progress.

The Community Solutions for Healthy Child Development Grants are in their second round of funding following what advocates called a successful pilot beginning in 2019. Given Minnesota's long-standing racial disparities, community sites making use of the aid hope the kids they serve find stability as they grow.

Brook LaFloe, associate director of the Montessori American Indian Childcare Center in Roseville, said they have been able to do things like hire a social worker, which helps build trust.

"Especially with our people's history with the boarding school era, it still lingers in some of our older generations, right?" LaFloe noted. "That mistrust in school, that mistrust in giving their children up to other people."

LaFloe added her team has maintained full enrollment for key services, including a program catering to children prenatal to 3 years old. Organizations such as Children's Defense Fund-Minnesota pushed for permanent funding after the pilot phase. The state health department said current grants are funded through 2027, but it is unclear what might happen down the road with future deficits forecast.

In northwestern Minnesota, the nonprofit All Nations Rise, which serves tribal members of White Earth Nation, carries out early childhood programming through a cultural lens.

Beth Ann Dodds, program manager for the group, said they have used the grant money to offer an Indigenous parent leadership class.

"They're learning more about themselves, which you need to have -- that self-awareness -- in order to make some positive changes," Dodds observed. "Whether that's with yourself, with that's with your family, or whether that's in your community. "

She added the curriculum has reached nearly two dozen parents, helping more than 70 children.

The grants have also helped fund efforts at Grandmother's House, a language and culture immersion program through Fond du Lac Tribal College in Cloquet.

Persia Erdrich, lead teacher for the program, said she has seen firsthand how outreach connects younger Native people with their tribal identity, aiding them in the development process. She sees the positive effects through her son.

"I started as a parent in this program, and his first words were in Ojibwe, his first sentences," Erdrich recounted. "He's bilingual now."