Bri Quintana wished to grow to be a mentor for youth after dropping her cousin to gun violence.
Her cousin had somebody like that earlier than he died — somebody to rely on by means of all of the courtroom dates and different systemic hurdles.
“Having the ability to assist youth, it makes it come full circle,” she mentioned.
Quintana now serves as a college and neighborhood mentor for Totally Liberated Youth, a Denver nonprofit that gives interventions for teenagers in class or these navigating the kid welfare or juvenile justice techniques.
Natalie Baddour co-founded the group 4 years in the past on the backs of grief and hope amid rising overdoses and gun violence, she mentioned. Her resolution: Offering full, holistic care centered on intimate relationships with younger individuals at excessive threat of involvement within the prison justice or welfare techniques. FLY, because the group known as, works in metro-area faculties, in the neighborhood and helps teenagers on reentry after they’re launched from the Colorado Division of Youth Providers.
The varsity-based program focuses on prevention in six Denver and Aurora faculties, mentioned Celine Wuarin, the group’s interim government director.
“The mannequin there’s we now have employees who present providers for a number of days per week — what we name high-dosage, high-frequency — reasonably than of us popping out and in,” Wuarin mentioned. “They’re embedded within the faculty surroundings and might construct relationships with youth but in addition employees.”
Mentors sit with their mentees in school, present one-on-one steerage exterior the classroom and use restorative work to restore relationships after incidents.
FLY additionally gives community-based invention providers, receiving referrals from pre-trial diversion and probation officers, outreach case managers and others near youth concerned within the juvenile justice or little one welfare techniques.
Workers spend time with youth in school or at house. Typically they take them out for lunch or espresso or they carry their mentees to pro-social alternatives, corresponding to mountain climbing.
Importantly, mentors stroll alongside youth as they navigate courtroom hearings and different complicated authorized proceedings.
Quintana has been working intently with an 18-year-old for a year-and-a-half, serving to him apply for jobs after he dropped out of college and frolicked in juvenile detention services.
The teenager, whom JHB is just not figuring out as a result of he has a pending prison case, mentioned Quintana is at all times there when he wants a experience to courtroom dates or probation conferences. The pair meet as soon as per week, normally on the younger particular person’s home, and so they simply discuss what’s happening of their lives.
He mentioned his dream is to get an apprenticeship to do HVAC or welding work, however FLY has made him contemplate changing into a mentor for different youth like him.
“It’s been dope,” Quintana mentioned. “It’s been a curler coaster. I really feel like we’ve grown collectively. He’s taught me issues; I’ve taught him issues. It’s not even a mentor-mentee relationship — he’s considered one of my homies.”
All FLY employees members, regardless of their place, work with youth in the neighborhood.
“We must always all be within the trenches and constructing relationships with essentially the most oppressed marginalized individuals within the metropolis of Denver,” Baddour mentioned.
Lastly, the group works with youth who’ve been sentenced to dedicated youth services, in addition to those that are leaving these facilities and need assistance with reentry.
The group in 2023-2024 served greater than 300 younger individuals. Almost half are Black, 46% are Latino or Latina and 5% determine as LGBTQIA, in accordance with FLY’s most up-to-date annual report.
Ninety-three p.c of members gained emotional regulation expertise, 97% reported constructive youth-provider relationships and 78% noticed lowered post-traumatic stress dysfunction symptomatology, the report discovered.
Quintana will formally work along with her mentee till the tip of his probation. However that doesn’t imply the tip of their relationship.
“At FLY, we now have a motto: We by no means actually cease working with our youth,” she mentioned.
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