Young Voices

Redefining “Lazy Youth” as Young Leaders

Karen Feldman had a vision: that if young people were trained to have a voice in the political process, they could make significant changes in the way our state creates policies.  With almost no funding, but a strong commitment to youth, Karen Feldman launched a new nonprofit called Young Voices and began to train youth to make change.

“In order to shift people’s perceptions of our youth, we need to first train kids how to talk in public, how to conduct research, and how to take leadership roles in community forums,” explains Karen, “We train youth how to be advocates, how to understand policy.”

With their signature purple shirts and professional style of talking, Young Voices participants began to redefine what policymakers thought of urban youth.  Over the course of the past few years, Young Voices participants have sat on commission boards, conducted research, developed a policy platform, and held press conferences to explain their policy positions, all of which has earned the teenagers a high level of respect.

When Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist pulled together a team of people to be involved in the state’s Race to the Top application for federal funding that would change our education system, Gist reached out to Young Voices.  “Two Young Voices girls were in the room with the most powerful people in the state,” recalls Karen, “One of the girls, Amber Johnson, went to D.C. to present on Race to the Top.”

Karen notes, “Our goal is to shift the dialogue when youth speak up and I believe we have.”

The Story of SOAR: From Redefining Domestic Violence to Policy Change

Through its fiscal agent, the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, SOAR (Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships) submitted a proposal to the Women’s Fund seeking funding to study how often was joint custody awarded to a potentially abusive divorcing spouse.  Were children continuing to be abused because of exposure to the abusive parent through the visitation process?

SOAR developed a Task Force to study the issue and invited the Family Court, Roger Williams University Law School, family law attorneys, and Legal Aid staff to join.  The Task Force worked for several months collecting data through surveys, focus groups, key informant interviews, and over 200 case reviews of Family Court hearings.  The results were staggering: 89 percent of survey respondents stated that their children witnessed domestic violence either before or during the custody and visitation process.  Fifty-three percent of children were abused during their legally required visitation.  Not surprisingly, 75 percent of children were afraid of their abusive parent.  Despite this, 58 percent of the cases of survey participants were decided in favor of joint custody.  The financial burden was also overwhelming: while nearly all respondents were working, 76 percent made less than $36,000 y ear.  Yet, one-third of survey respondents had spent over $25,000 in legal fees.

“The data from the final report was an eye-opener for everyone,” Carmen says, “we were all surprised by the level of violence women and children continue to be exposed to, of the financial strain on them.  The data made everyone on the Task Force get very passionate for the project.”

While the report lists twelve recommendations for change, the most complex change would be altering the existing legislation that favors joint custody in cases of divorce.  With the full support of the Task Force and the Family Court, Senator Maryellen Goodwin and Representative Elaine Coderre introduced Senate Bill 2705 and House Bill 7483 during the 2010 legislative session.  If passed, this legislation would have established a classification of domestic abuse risk in child custody and visitation cases where domestic violence is present, created a rebuttable presumption that it is not in the best interest of the child to be placed in sole, shared legal or physical custody of an abusive parent, and would require the family court to provide for the safety of the child and the non-offending parent during visitation with the abusive parent.

“The bill was revolutionary last year,” explains Representative Coderre, “It is a very, very important bill and I am reintroducing it this year.”  Because of resistance from some legislators, however, the bill may take years to pass.

The Task Force conducted trainings at the Family Court to explain the impact of certain decisions on victims of abuse;

One sub-committee is working to create a manual for domestic violence survivors to help them navigate the court system, and another sub-committee is engaging the broader legal community to provide more pro bono services in domestic violence cases.

There has also been an immediate impact on Renee, “SOAR has been empowering for me and my children, too.  When I got the report in my hands, I just realized, ‘Oh My Gosh, we are doing it.’  I was in tears.  It was a victorious moment for me, for my children, for SOAR, and for all the other families stuck in this system.”

Renee largely credits the continued support of the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island for that empowerment, “Without the funding from the Women’s Fund that never would’ve happened.  While the outcome from this report won’t impact my court case, it has empowered my children.  They now say, ‘Mommy, you have to do this because we don’t want any other children to go through what we’ve been through.’  It was only talk before the Women’s Fund gave us money and now it is a real movement.  We are making concrete steps towards change.”

Read more about our social change grant making impact in Dollars to Sense (PDF, 6.86MB) released in April of this year.