Programs & Services in the Juvenile Justice Center

Below, please find an alphabetical list of programs currently operating in San Francisco Juvenile Hall and the Secure Youth Treatment Facility.

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Art of Yoga Project

The Art of Yoga Project teaches mindfulness to young people in the justice system, using yoga, meditation, creative arts, and writing.

Their model combines:

• Gender inclusive best practices
• Trauma-sensitive yoga
• Developmental tools for healthy adolescent growth
• Neuroscience research on developmental trauma and the brain

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Beat Within

The Beat Within provides a safe space for incarcerated youth to share their ideas and life experiences. The program helps youth with:

• Literacy
• Self-expression
• Critical thinking skills
• Building healthy and supportive relationships

From these weekly workshops, The Beat Within produces an award-winning publication showcasing participants' writing and art.

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Border Youth Tennis Exchange (BYTE)

Weekly program that includes professional sports instruction and a curated enrichment curriculum of trauma-informed coaching, sport for development, sport psychology, and positive social and emotional expression.

The New Directions Student Support program provides academic support to young people in Juvenile Hall. The New Directions Counselor supports current City College students. The Counselor also meets with students interested in attending City College. Topics covered include:

• Enrollment
• Classes
• Courses of study
• Academic support

Office hours are offered at Juvenile Hall every other Thursday. 

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City Youth Now

City Youth Now’s Inside-Out Program provides academic, recreational, and therapeutic activities to all youths and young adults housed within Juvenile Hall.

Activities include:

• Academic tutoring from college students and community members
• Musical performances
• Basketball games
• Family holiday brunch
• Special meals for Black History Month
• A ZooMobile and Insect Discovery Lab

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Comunidad San Dimas

Comunidad San Dimas offers religious services and promotes the ideas of forgiveness and restorative justice. Their goal is to provide rehabilitation services that help people become productive citizens and stay out of incarceration. 

They support:

• At-risk youth
• Former gang members
• Formerly incarcerated men and women on probation or parole programs
• Victims

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Fresh Lifelines for Youth

Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY) is a 6 to 12 week law education program. Staff and highly trained volunteers teach a fun, interactive curriculum that covers:

• Police encounters and arrests
• Accomplice liability
• California's 3 strikes law

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iCEV

iCEV is an online vocational program. iCEV offers many Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses and certification pathways. Students choose their own pathway and work at their own pace. Teachers support students during their coursework. Courses include:

• Architecture
• Construction
• Transportation
• Manufacturing
• Business
• Marketing
• Finance
• Information technology
• Family and consumer sciences

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Incarceration To College

Incarceration to College (ITC) is a college outreach class provided to incarcerated youth through UC Berkeley’s Underground Scholars Program. ITC covers college applications, financial aid, scholarships, trades, sports, clubs, organizations, re-entry resources, business, habits, skills, and personal statements. Students can earn credits towards high school graduation through ITC. ITC also helps youth create release plans and supports them in planning for the future.

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Next Steps Project

Power Source

Next Steps Project's Power Source curriculum is a proven, evidence-based social and emotional learning program for high-risk youth.

By learning social and emotional regulation skills, young people are more equipped to:

• Build healthy relationships
• Break intergenerational cycles of violence, addiction and other high-risk behaviors
• Be successful in the workforce

Life Planning and Mentoring

Next Steps Project's Life Planning and Mentoring consists of 1 on 1 sessions where young people work with staff to:

• Discuss their personal challenges
• Identify personal goals
• Develop an actionable plan to meet them

These discussions help youth to leave detention with a plan of action, increased confidence, and a sense of hope.

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Occupational Therapy Training Program

Occupational Therapy Training Program (OTTP) serves youth and young adults through prevention, early intervention, school-based, workforce development, and after-care services.

Therapeutic activities are hands-on, engaging, and meaningful to their clients. They include:

• Assessment
• Therapeutic individual intervention
• Therapeutic groups
• Psychotherapy
• Family therapy
• Employment
• Case management

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Omega Boys Club

The Omega Boys Club works to change beliefs, attitudes, values, and actions that promote violence.

Staff identify and address risk factors for violence, and offer rules for living that promote positive lifestyle choices.

Omega's goal is to prevent the onset of the disease of violence in our youth.

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Religious services

Each Sunday, we hold Catholic and Protestant services. There is also a full-time Chaplain available.

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Special Programs for Youth

The San Francisco Department of Public Health operates Special Programs for Youth (SPY) within Juvenile Hall to provide trauma informed, culturally relevant, and accessible health services.

Girls' Circle

The Girls’ Circle model is a structured support group for girls and youth who identify with female development. It integrates relational theory, resiliency practices, and skills training in a specific format designed to increase positive connection, personal and collective strengths, and competence in girls.

Boys' Circle

The Council for Boys and Young Men meets a male gender-specific need by addressing and challenging harmful masculinity beliefs and norms and supporting boys in developing safe, healthy identities and behaviors.

Aggression Replacement Training (ART)

ART is a therapeutic program that promotes positive behavior by addressing factors that contribute to aggression. Skills addressed include:

• Social and coping skills
• Impulsiveness
• Over-reliance on aggression to meet daily needs.

Experiential groups

SPY facilitates a variety of experiential groups that integrate a variety of different activities such as arts and crafts, cooking projects and media. These activities are an opportunity for youth to have pro-social interactions with peers, express themselves ,and learn practical life skills.

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Scholastic Interest Group

Scholastic Interest Group, or SIG, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose mission is to assist young men living in the low-income communities of San Francisco reach their full potential by offering a variety of personal development programs that meet their unique needs. Through an individual mentoring program and life skills workshops, the young men are exposed to a variety of possibilities for the their future success. SIG adds value to the community by giving the young men and their families viable opportunities to improve their quality of life.

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Success Centers

Success Centers' Inside Out intervention model provides services to support youth in custody and continues those services in the community upon release.

Credible Messengers

Success Centers in-custody Credible Messenger Life Coaches serve both committed youth and youth in detention in the Juvenile Justice Center. Credible Messengers initiate trusting relationships, provide mentorship and coaching, and facilitate youth engagement with pro-social activities. Credible Messengers work in collaboration with JJC staff on the units 7 days a week, 9AM to 9PM.

Visual art

In person instructors teach young people how to paint and draw. This helps young people connect to their creativity and promotes cooperation, skill building, and a sense of accomplishment. 

Playwriting

The Sketch Comedy class consists of studying sketch comedy videos and writing original skits to be performed by actual actors.

Job readiness

The Job Readiness Training and Keeping It Safe program helps young people recognize concepts that would have typically been provided by traditional familial role models.

These include:

• Defining healthy, respectful personal relationships
• Recognizing the importance of pursuing employment opportunities that offer a living wage
• Recognizing the importance of pursuing post-secondary education including vocational skills

Code on Point

Coding cohorts last for 8 weeks and consist of 60 minute workshops that are linked to a Microsoft Digital Literacy Certificate. Participants are encouraged to join Success Centers full Code on Point course upon release from Juvenile Hall.

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Success Stories

Success Stories is a series of classes that reshapes how young people who have caused harm see themselves. This includes shifting their goals and relationships to the people closest to them.

Formerly incarcerated facilitators describe how they deal with similar thoughts and behaviors through a program called "Relate-Investigate-Recreate." They then encourage young people to do the same.

After graduating, participants stay connected through the Alumni Network. This network offers resources, programming, and accountability to continue on their individual journey. Many participants go on to become facilitators.

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Sunset Youth Services

In the Digital Arts and Technology Program, youth learn creative self-expression and project-based learning through:

• Songwriting
• Digital recording and engineering
• Filmmaking
• Beat sequencing
• DJ instruction
• Instrumentation
• Podcasting
• Photography

Educated by industry professionals, youth gain marketable skills while laying the foundation for future employment.

Sunset Youth Services Case Managers offer highly relational, 1 on 1 support to help youth set and reach their goals, overcome barriers, and begin to thrive. They also offer advocacy and support in navigating other systems.

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Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG)

VOEG is a restorative justice group program for young people who wish to understand themselves better. VOEG helps young people understand how their life experiences and decisions led them to their current circumstances and how their crimes have impacted their victim(s). The purpose of the training is to help committed young people understand and take responsibility for the impact of the crime(s) they have committed. The class culminates with participants meeting with victims for a healing dialogue.

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Young Women’s Freedom Center

The Young Women’s Freedom Center (YWFC) empowers and inspires cis and trans young women, trans young men, and gender-expansive young people who have been disproportionately impacted by incarceration, racist and sexist policies, the juvenile and criminal justice systems, and/or the underground street economy, to create positive change in their lives and communities.

YWFC provides a curriculum to help young people develop:

• Critical thinking skills
• Life skills
• Juvenile criminal justice system 101
• Self-esteem and self-advocacy 

YWFC also provides courtroom advocacy and continues their relationships with youths and young adults within the community.

 

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