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THE PESA POST
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Parents, Educators/Teachers & Students in Action

July 22, 2021
“TEEN COURT IS LITERALLY EVERYTHING”
A young social worker pours passion into her work with PESA
“This idea that, as a kid, you do one bad thing and now your entire life is molded inside of a jail blows my mind,” says Danielle Gilmore, a student of USC’s Masters’ of Social Work program. The opportunity to help change that—to make a positive impact in a young person’s life—is precisely what drew the committed social worker to PESA. “The Teen Court diversion program is literally everything at this point. The process of having other teens judge what's happening, it’s amazing.”

Gilmore’s passion for the restorative justice program stems from a childhood experience of her own. “Growing up, my dad’s friends were all cops, so they would come to my house and tell these stories about kids that were locked up. In my opinion, they felt no remorse for that, they felt like these kids deserved to be there.” Conversely, she says that at the time, “I never realized the privilege that I held, having my dad's friends making sure I was the good kid and never got in trouble. Holding all this privilege is just not fair, and I want to give it out like pie.”

Gilmore is working with plenty of clients who are hungry for a slice. “If I just keep proving that I’m this stable person in their life,” she says, referring to the counseling she provides, “that I’m here, and I'm not going anywhere, they will open up and start to enjoy it.”
 
It’s not always, well, a cakewalk. “Having empathy [can be] hard,” she says, “but understanding that they’re kids, and that they need to learn new behaviors and better coping mechanisms… has been life changing. After talking in detail and having them come to their own realizations why [what they did] was wrong and how they would do things differently — it’s great, but hard at the same time.”

It’s people like Gilmore—counselors, social workers, judges, mentors and tutors—who have given of their time and expertise to make Teen Court the success it is today. Since its inception in 1992, thousands of teenage first-time offenders have been given a second chance at righting wrongs, avoiding the almost inescapable grip of the traditional juvenile justice system, and, for the most part, gone on to become productive members of the community. Indeed, according to LAPD cmdr. Jeffery Bert in a 2017 story in calhealthreport.org, the recidivism rate of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Justice System was between 30 and 60 percent. Compare that to the recidivism rate of the Teen Court program at just 8.5 percent. 

Meanwhile, Gilmore continues to double down on her work. “I don't care if it burns me out,” she says with a laugh, “I'm going to do as much as I can while I can.”

If you’d like to support PESA’s many social and educational initiatives, please contact us.