Avenues for Justice Adds Coding for Girls with BlackRock and Life Management Skills To Our HIRE Up Program

Over the past year, Avenues for Justice (AFJ) has expanded our team to 16 staff members and welcomed Program and Activities Coordinator, Jessica Bachman, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Karen Drakeford. Jessica and Karen have diversified AFJ’s HIRE Up programming with the addition of onsite mental health support services for our young people. As we highlighted two weeks ago, Jessica has been instrumental in developing AFJ’s gender-based programming. This week, we are spotlighting two new workshops: Coding for Girls, in partnership with AFJ’s corporate partner BlackRock, and Life Management Skills, launched by Karen, which is a revamped version of our Mental Health 101 workshop.

‍Coding for Girls: Breaking Barriers in Tech

For the past three years, BlackRock has facilitated several HIRE Up Job Readiness workshops for our Participants with a focus on resume writing, interview prep and workplace etiquette. Looking to build on our gender-based programming, Jessica reached out to BlackRock to facilitate coding for our young women. With over 80% of computer programming jobs in the U.S. held by men, implementing a coding workshop was an important step towards breaking tech industry barriers. Jessica worked with BlackRock to create a supportive learning environment, with a 1:1 all-female instructor to Participant ratio.

After the 45-minute introductory computer programming lesson, Participants used our center’s computer lab to put their newly acquired coding skills to use. Several of our Participants shared how they never imagined taking coding and that the team of all women BlackRock facilitators made them feel empowered and inspired. Based on our Participants’ positive feedback, AFJ is exploring a partnership with a third-party coding organization for our young men.

“It was amazing to see how engaged AFJ Participants were with BlackRock volunteers. They were genuinely excited about coding as a creative outlet and potential career skill. Participants had the chance to create fun and interactive projects based on the foundational programming concepts they had learned that day. The workshop displayed that coding is essential to and shows up in our everyday lives, from taking the subway to checking the weather app.” -Olivia McEntee, BlackRock Vice President, and Coding for Girls Workshop Facilitator.

‍Life Management Skills: A New Approach to Mental Health Wellness

Last week, AFJ launched Life Management Skills, a mandatory bi-weekly workshop led by our Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Karen Drakeford. Previously, AFJ required all new AFJ Participants to complete our Mental Health 101 workshop, but with 20 years of experience as a social worker in NYC public schools, Karen knows firsthand that the term “mental health” can create anxiety and distrust among young people. She restructured the workshop to focus on real-life challenges that our Participants face daily, with the goal of equipping them with tools to navigate stress, emotions, and decision-making.

Karen identified social media use as a psychological stressor for our young people after listening to Participants express the pressures they feel from digital technology. By addressing social anxiety and the fear of missing out (FOMO), Karen aims to help our Participants build self-awareness, self-worth, and resilience—key coping tools and strategies for their long-term success. Life Management Skills will shape AFJ’s future mental health initiatives as we meet the evolving needs of our Participants.

‍AFJ’s Growing Team & Expanding Impact

In the past 18 months, AFJ has welcomed six new team members, each bringing vigor, enthusiasm, and a deep commitment to our vision of creating a more just world for young people by making alternatives to incarceration – and not jail - the norm for our Participants. We look forward to providing more workshops, like Coding for Girls and Life Management Skills, to uplift and empower our Participants.