Closing the Extracurriculars Gap: Prioritizing Extracurricular Activities as a Key Intervention for Children and Youth in Foster Care and Juvenile Justice

This Youth Law Center report describes the benefits of extracurricular participation for youth, families, and communities; highlights the legal and policy supports for extracurricular participation for system-involved youth; lists system barriers to extracurricular participation; explores ways to overcome those barriers; and makes recommendations to increase extracurricular participation for system-involved youth. The report notes that extracurriculars […]

Just Beginning Issue Sheet

Sheet describing the need for the Just Beginning Program; the benefits the program provides both the infant/child and the incarcerated father.

Delivering Services to Incarcerated Teen Fathers: A Pilot Intervention to Increase the Quality of Father-Infant Interactions During Visitation

Article appearing in Psychological Services concerning analysis of a pilot intervention, the Baby Elmo or Just Beginnings Program, which provides incarcerated teen fathers with parenting training and visitation with their children and their infants. The study looked at 41 incarcerated teen fathers and their infants ranging from 1 to 15 months. During individual sessions, a […]

KPCC Bably Elmo Interview

This is a short interview on Radio Station KPCC 89.3 in Los Angeles, broadcast March 30, 2014, interviewing Ben Richeda about the Baby Elmo Program.

Developing an Effective Intervention for Incarcerated Teen Fathers – The Baby Elmo Program

The absence of a father figure has been linked to very poor developmental outcomes. The Baby Elmo Program, a parenting and structured visitation program, aims to form and maintain bonds between children and their incarcerated teen fathers. The program is taught and supervised by probation staff in juvenile detention facilities. This intervention is based on […]

Foster Care for Young Children, Why It Must Be Developmentally Informed

The Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry published this article entitled, Foster Care for Young Children: Why It Must Be Developmentally Informed, in their December issue. It was written by Youth Law Center’s Executive Director, Carole Shauffer, Dr. Charles H. Zeanah with the Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, […]