ACT NOW: Ensuring ‘beloved’ communities where everyone feels safe and can thrive.
Communities participating in ACT NOW 2.0 will create deflection programs designed to keep marginalized youth out of the criminal justice system. Seventy percent of youth involved in the criminal justice system become repeat offenders and struggle to complete their educational goals and find it challenging to find meaningful employment.
ACT NOW sites will identify and support youth programs that provide interventions designed to keep young people out of the system. Sites are working with a cadre of justice navigators that will connect young people to mental health services, job training, and create attachment to programs and services that build resiliency.
Building on the work of ACT NOW 1.0 that focused on law enforcement engagement with communities, ACT NOW 2.0 will work directly with youth and law enforcement to build trust and data driven strategies to keep young people out of the criminal justice system.
ACT NOW equips communities with the tools to take ownership for the civic space, to create true listening, dialogue, mutual engagement and commitment to achieve the ‘Beloved Community’, the place where everyone, especially youth, are able to achieve their full potential.
ACT NOW Methodology
Listening Sessions
identify genuine areas of concern, ensuring that marginalized or the most impacted populations are at the table.
Breaking Bread
create empathy and understanding, common ground, prioritizing what the community wants to focus on to achieve a better society.
Justice Circles
are the civic platform to create consensus and mobilize mutually agreed upon actions (ACT NOW).
Local Data Utilization
to help communities understand the issues, inform responses, and measure impact.
Innovation Replication
and promising practices such as justice navigators that divert youth from involvement in the criminal justice system and promote resilience, wellbeing and employment.
ACT NOW Core Beliefs
- Sanctity of life is the essence of ACT NOW, whether we are talking about policing and criminal justice reform, healthcare, social services, education, employment or any other sector of society.
- Every person has the right to achieve their full potential, our systems should be designed to ensure that everyone is able to thrive.
- Beloved communities prioritize creating nurturing safe environments for all young people. Youth engagement that is youth-led and youth-driven has the power to create a sense of belonging, meaning, purpose and wellbeing.
ACT NOW Impact
- Report to the Nation (ACT NOW 1.0)
- Case Studies demonstrate what happens when communities use the ACT NOW framework: the innovations, the positive civic actions, a sense of common purpose and focus.
- ACT NOW Community of Practice provides nationwide access to the tools, resources, training and technical assistance to launch their own civic movements.
- Each community defines its own issues and priorities, mobilizes all of its assets to implement their strategies to divert youth from the criminal justice system and move them toward resilience and self-sufficiency.
