This holiday season we would like you to Step Into Joy with us as we reflect on the past year and make our last efforts of 2021 to support youth and their families.

As we enter the holidays, we believe it’s important to first and foremost think about the reason we do what we do, and that is: no child should be locked up, away from their family. And no family should have to miss their child. That’s why we will end the year by purchasing and dropping off gifts to incarcerated youth. FFLIC will deliver candy, toiletries, clothing, books, games, and other gifts to about 300 kids in seven different youth prisons. This small gesture of caring can mean the world to a young person who is facing the challenges of isolation and separation from family.

And we need you to make this happen! Will you Step Into Joy with us by donating to FFLIC so that we can continue to provide youth with gifts over the holidays?

• For just 5$ you can help us purchase a pair of socks or a hat to give the gift of warmth.
• For $10 you can cover the cost of a book or a calendar to give the gift of knowledge.
• For $20 you can cover the cost of a puzzle or a game to give the gift of joy.
• For $50-100 you can cover the cost of a dorm gift, such as a radio, to offer community care.

Our youth deserve all of these and they also deserve so much more. They deserve holistic and life-affirming systems of support such as living wages; trauma-informed schools without zero tolerance policies and culturally competent curriculum; access to healthcare and mental healthcare; affordable housing; and other investments into communities. And that is what we will continue to fight for. Please donate to our ‘Step Into Joy’ campaign now!

Share on Social Media!

We also are asking you to please share a graphic on social media with this sample message:

• Children belong at home and in their communities, not locked up, during the holidays. With your gift, you can bring a little joy to an incarcerated young person who is facing isolation and separation from their family. #LetKidsBeKids #StepIntoJoy Donate at www.fflic.org/donations
  

You can also share our Facebook event page at: https://fb.me/e/2HcNU9ODn

The #MyCauseMyCleats pledge is an opportunity for NFL players to reveal their passions beyond the game and wear their hearts on their feet. They have the opportunity to pick a cause that is important to them and represent their chosen organization on custom designed cleats.

We are incredibly grateful to Saints Wide Receiver Deonte Harris for choosing to represent FFLIC for the #MyCauseMyCleats pledge for the Week 13 Saints game against the Dallas Cowboys. Deonte played a great game and made a touchdown, but what's more, Deonte also understands the need to uplift our youth and provide them with opportunities and community supports, including counseling, community activities and services, and other mental health supports to help them reach their potential and overcome the many challenges they face.

Deonte's wearing of the cleats acted as an important reminder to youth they are not forgotten, that they matter, and they can overcome the challenges they face. We appreciate his commitment to uplifting youth! #LetKidsBeKids #TayNation #WhoDat

Check out FFLIC's newest blog, a message from FFLIC Office Manager, Danise Pruitt. Below is an excerpt:

"What I want for every child, is what my sons, who are now sixteen and fourteen, have. I have always really paid attention to them and I see them for who they are, and I also see the potential they have. I want all children to be seen in that way, and we have to change the narrative. Despite what the news and policymakers seem to believe, our children are not superpredators or criminals. I am from the Lower Nine, and I was born and raised in the Lower Nine. Back in the days, that was one of the most notorious crime areas. So I know what it’s like to be looked at a certain way. But we have to keep changing the way white supremacist culture has defined and labeled our Black and brown youth."

To read the full article, click here.

Reporting to the Deputy Director, the Director of Programs will be responsible for the operational success of FFLIC’s programmatic areas. This position will plan and supervise all aspects of projects, from inception to execution, ensuring that objectives are carried out on time. These programmatic areas will consist of organizing parents and youth, driving local and statewide campaign work, providing individual advocacy to those impacted by the youth justice and education systems, ensuring the success of a multi-stakeholder coalition, and maintaining the seamless integration of these programmatic areas. This position will focus on team management and program development by ensuring effective program delivery, quality control, data tracking and evaluation. In this newly established role, the Director of Programs will directly supervise a growing staff of four people and will be a key external face for FFLIC in the community.

To learn more and apply visit: https://www.fflic.org/get-involved/careers/

This past year, FFLIC launched an exciting new advocacy tool that also makes for a great holiday gift! As an effort to use the power of art and stories FFLIC has created a coloring book (for adults, mature youth, and to be used as a teaching tool for younger children) titled, “Let Kids Be Kids," which is based on the real lived experience of families dealing with systems of oppression and incarceration.

FFLIC hopes that the “Let Kids Be Kids” coloring book will provide families, youth, advocates, community members, schools, policymakers, and all those working in systems with the understanding they need to actively participate in pushing for the needed youth justice reforms, including policies that reinvest funding from youth incarceration into community alternatives.

“Our systems and policymakers hold our youth to the highest levels of accountability, most of the time ignoring adolescent brain development and age appropriate treatment and services.  But, who holds the system accountable? We hope the book helps shift the focus back to where it should be,” said FFLIC’s Executive Director Gina Womack.

The coloring book can be purchased for $15 and it makes a great gift that gives back!

You can also share on social media about the book with a graphic:

• Here is a gift that shifts power and dismantles systems of oppression and racism. This coloring book not only tells the history of youth incarceration in LA but its a tool to do the work. #LetKidsBeKids http://bit.ly/letkidsbekidsbook

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To learn more about the Coloring Book you can also watch our Coloring Book Pre-Launch Event: “Challenging Youth Incarceration in Louisiana: a 20-Year Journey” that provides info about the coloring book. (Recorded February 23, 2021)

The Advisory Council on Student Behavior & Discipline (ACSBD) will meet on December 16, 2021, in the BESE Building, 1201 N 3rd St, Baton Rouge, LA 70802, from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m CST. It will also be live-streamed from the BESE website.

The ACSBD was created by Act 522 of 2016. The purpose of the ACSBD is "to provide advice and guidance to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) regarding best practices in providing support to public school governing authorities in the adoption and implementation of each school’s master plan for student behavior and discipline. However, the “school master plan,” which is key to the ACSBD, is rooted in Act 1225 of 2003, which was passed to transform Louisiana’s system into a model of holistic support for children and move away from its ineffective punitive approach. 

For more information and to view the meeting online visit: https://bese.louisiana.gov/

Governor John Bel Edwards and OJJ continue to tout a new $26 million facility to be built at Swanson. FFLIC believes those funds should be invested in frontend solutions, including opportunities for youth, education, living wages, and mental health supports that will result in better outcomes for the youth and a safer community. Youth deserve better treatment and Monroe deserves better jobs.

Community members will gather in-person in Monroe to discuss concerns, alternatives to punitive systems, how to better invest prison construction dollars in the local community, and how communities can take action to build holistic networks of support for youth and ensure every young person has the opportunity to live a full and productive life. We will center the voices of parents whose children are currently incarcerated at Swanson. We will center the voices of parents whose children are currently incarcerated at Swanson.

Refreshments will be provided. Please wear a mask.

Register at https://bit.ly/ffliclisteningdec9.

To transform our youth justice system, we must continue to advocate for the closure of youth prisons and stop the building of new ones, and the Juvenile Justice Reform Act Implementation Commission (JJRAIC) is key to change.

With FFLIC as Vice Chair, the JJRAIC has reconvened after years of dormancy, and it is once again moving the state forward in the important work of transforming our systems. But we need you to help us hold our state leaders and policymakers accountable. We must continue to ask important questions and create systems of accountability and oversight to protect our children!

For more information and to join the next meeting, which is scheduled to take place on December 10, 2021 at 1:00 PM CST, visit: https://legis.la.gov

The Louisiana Department of Education sees family engagement as "an empowering partnership among families, educators, practitioners and the community with shared responsibility for the personal success of children and youth, according to LDOE." While we agree that parents are integral to a child's education, we also want to see LDOE and systems leaders acknowledge the challenges that parents and families face as a result of institutional racism, environmental stressors, and trauma. 

84-year-old Lester Pearson finally walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary as a free man. He was locked up for 57 years for murder after signing a plea agreement in which he was promised a chance at parole after serving 10 years and 6 months. It never happened. The Louisiana Parole Project said Pearson is one of approximately 60 so-called “10/6 lifers” in the Louisiana State Penitentiary – commonly known as “Angola” – who plead guilty not only to avoid execution, but also with the understanding they would have a chance at freedom after a decade. Today, they range in age from 66 to 86. #NoMorePrisons

NATIONAL

Young people own their stories & should always feel empowered while sharing their experiences for advocacy purposes. Use the latest toolkit from National Juvenile Justice Network and Citizens for Juvenile Justice to ensure our organizations are engaging youth storytelling in an ethical way. bit.ly/RespectYouthStories

Last week, #LessLonely launched, which is a campaign led by and for Gen Z to raise awareness and offer tools to people of all ages looking to cultivate deeper relationships, fight stigma, and support #MentalHealth. Visit http://less-lonely.org to access the toolkit and share a #LessLonely post with your community.

"The Thin Blue Line in Schools" is an education working paper from Annenberg Institute at Brown that finds school resource officers “intensify the use of suspensions, expulsions, police referrals, and arrests of students” and disproportionately impact Black students.