Who are System Affected Youth?

Here at BJM, we’ve been hard at work creating and launching two new programs: SHINE Mentorship and Azul Leadership Cohort. As these programs were being formed, our team spent time discerning where God was leading. It was powerful to see that God was leading both programs to work with very similar groups of people, just different in their age groups. 

God led both programs to focus on system-impacted young people. SHINE Mentorship works with girls ages 9-15 and Azul works with young adults/transitional age youth ages 18-24 who have been impacted by systems and childhood instability. 

Being system-impacted could involve directly experiencing systems such as the child welfare system, the juvenile justice system, or the immigration system. More broadly, these young people could be affected by systems of discrimination and prejudice within society and a lack of connections and opportunities within the larger socioeconomic structures. Childhood instability could involve parental harm or neglect, experiencing life as an immigrant to the U.S., socioeconomic challenges, or lack of neighborhood safety. 

The outcomes reported for young people who are impacted by systems and instability are tragic and can affect their life-long trajectory. 


Foster Care Involvement Outcomes

  • An average of 1 out of every 4 youth in foster care will become homeless within 4 years of aging out of foster care, and nationwide 50% of the homeless population spent time in foster care.(1)

  • In California, only around 64% of youth in the foster care system graduate from high school compared to 86% for the state overall.(2)

  • 63% of sex trafficking victims reported a history of involvement with the child welfare system.(3)


Juvenile Justice System Involvement Outcomes

  • 16% of detained students graduated from high school, compared to 72% of non-detained students. Among those who cumulatively spent more than a month in juvenile detention, 8% graduated.(4)

  • Studies have found that incarcerated youth suffer from two to four times the suicide rate of youth in the community.(5)

  • Juvenile incarceration is estimated to increase the likelihood of adult incarceration by 23 percentage points.(6)


Immigration System Involvement Outcomes

  • Children of immigrants were more likely to be in low-income families (45 percent of the 17.8 million) compared to children of U.S.-born parents (35 percent of the 51.1 million). (7)

  • The main issues that immigrants face in the U.S. are language barriers, lack of employment opportunities and financial stresses, housing, access to medical services, transportation issues, falsehoods about immigrants causing fear and distrust, raising children amidst these concerns, and prejudice and discrimination. (8)

Amidst these challenges that system-impacted young people face, we hold deep hope for their bright futures. At BJM, we have always held the passage in Isaiah 61 closely as a vision for how we shape our programs. Specifically in verse 4, it says that “they will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.” In this passage, “they” represents the “broken-hearted.” System-impacted youth and young adults may have experienced heart-breaking circumstances and relationships, yet the hope and healing love of God opens a pathway where those once devastated now have the vision and voice that will rebuild entire cities. System-impacted young people have a unique and essential perspective to lead our communities, and we are grateful to create safe spaces within BJM where they are able to step into the plans that God has designed for them. 


Lauren Butts & Justine Martinez


Referenes

  1. https://nfyi.org/issues/homelessness/

  2. https://www.afs4kids.org/blog/foster-youth-education-in-california-what-you-need-to-know/

  3.  https://www.socialworktoday.com/news/enews_1118_1.shtml

  4. https://erdc.wa.gov/publications/justice-program-outcomes/education-outcome-characteristics-students-admitted-juvenile

  5. https://www.ylc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Research-on-Youth-Incarceration-in-California.pdf

  6. https://www.ylc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Research-on-Youth-Incarceration-in-California.pdf

  7. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states-2020#children-immigrants

  8. https://nysiaf.org/the-8-biggest-challenges-facing-immigrants/

Sonja Schappert