Take Action

The challenge for each of us and for our nation is to ensure our children grow up healthy and safe and that we prevent them from a negative path in life.

 

INDIVIDUALS

• Mentor a child.
• Volunteer at an after-school program for youth.
• Vote in every election and advocate for children.
• Educate elected officials about the Pipeline.
• Host a house party to educate others about the Pipeline and what they can do to dismantle it.
• Volunteer with children who are homeless or in foster care.
• Organize a forum on incarcerated youth and the funding disparities between prisons and education in our nation.
• Volunteer your talents or professional services to help a single-parent, kinship care or foster care family by babysitting, inviting them to events with their children, or providing transportation.
• Invite youth to events at the next educational level (i.e., taking a high school student to a college basketball game).

FAMILIES

• Spend quality time with your family (i.e., family game night, eating meals together).
• Join the PTA, a parent support group, or other school group.
• Attend school activities and/or volunteer in the  classroom.
• Consistently praise your child?s achievements in school and extracurricular activities.
• Establish and maintain a supportive home learning environment.
• Create daily homework routines and limit television viewing.
• Offer tutoring and homework help to your children or younger siblings.
• Offer to run errands or help around the house.
• Communicate with and listen to your child.
• Talk and actively listen to children within your extended family.
• Show affection, love and respect to your child every day.
• Do something fun with your child or sibling.
• Adopt a foster child or become a foster parent.

COMMUNITIES

• Institute a "Cradle Roll" within your faithbased institution or community, linking every child to a permanent, caring family member or adult mentor who can keep them on track and get them back on track if and when they stray.
• Promote learning by starting an after-school program for children.
• Ensure that at least one caring community member attends every public school student suspension meeting or court hearing.
• Encourage families to spend quality time together by hosting a movie or game night at your church.
• Start a support group for single-parent or kinship care families.
• Provide job opportunities and guidance for families and youth in need.
• Create college scholarships for children from disadvantaged, foster care and kinship care families.
• Work with school officials to develop and adopt more child-appropriate discipline policies and procedures.
• Reach out to youth who are homeless or in foster care.
• Prepare care packages of new clothes, personal toiletries and/or a welcome gift for children placed
  into foster care homes.
• Hold events to celebrate the strengths of our children and provide college scholarships and
  leadership opportunities to youth.
• Start a halfway house and counseling program for youth who have run away.
• Create a summer job opportunity for a youth.
• Create and distribute a community resource manual so that parents know where to turn for help for their families.

ORGANIZATIONS

• Invest in prevention and early intervention.
• Host a health fair to ensure all children who are eligible for Medicaid or your State Children?s Health Insurance Program are enrolled.
• Provide free tax filing assistance to low-income working families.
• Educate families about how they can apply for Food Stamps, Head Start, federal nutrition programs and other similar benefits.
• Create and distribute a calendar of free family-friendly community events.
• Start a parent education program to familiarize parents about conflict resolution in the home and how to advocate for their children.
• Encourage alternatives to incarceration such as restitution, community service, electronic monitoring, drug rehabilitation treatment or placement in a ?staff secure? (but not locked) community corrections facility.
• Work to ensure that counseling, social services, education, and health and mental health services are provided to at-risk youth.
• Fund reinvestment in urban communities, such as parks, schools and roads.
• Write annual child and gun violence reports to track the killing of children and call for effective gun control measures and nonviolent conflict resolution training.
• Host a Cradle to Prison Pipeline Summit to connect and educate others about the Pipeline and ways to dismantle it.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

• Bring other elected officials and leaders together to gain first-hand awareness of the status of your local children; demonstrate what is working and what is not.
• Ensure children in foster care and detention receive quality treatment to address their mental, behavioral and emotional needs.
• Promote high quality children?s television programming and access to other quality electronic media.
• Provide high quality early childhood development programs for all.
• Ensure all children and pregnant women access to affordable, seamless, comprehensive health coverage and services.
• Establish policies that emphasize prevention and rehabilitation to keep children out of or rescue them from the Pipeline.
• Expand "second chance" programs for high school dropouts, ex-offenders and at-risk youth to secure GEDs, job training and employment.
• Reduce repeat offender rates by focusing on treatment- and family-oriented approaches.
• Make sure every child can read at grade level by 4th grade and graduate from high school able to succeed in post-secondary education and/or work.
• Organize state and local leadership councils or committees to create strategic plans to address the learning and developmental needs of children.
• Invest money in community-based rehabilitation centers and treatment programs to serve as an alternative to juvenile detention and prison.
• Stop the criminalization of children at increasingly younger ages.
• Create partnerships with local businesses, schools and/or churches to create quality exit programs for those leaving the juvenile justice system as a way to start them on the "Pipeline to Success."