Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services Announces Critical Initiatives to Improve Public Safety

Contact: Reggie Sanders (DYRS), 202-279-0957 (cell)

WASHINGTON, DC – Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) Director, Vincent N. Schiraldi today announced several critical community initiatives targeted at improving public safety in the District.  The programs will strengthen the range of supports and services allocated to the city’s at-risk youth by collaborating more closely with law enforcement and community groups.

“Working with local organizations and advocates that serve District youth, and with their families, DYRS has designed an initiative to provide and coordinate a wide range of key services needed by youth in trouble and share information about youth being returned to the community,” said Mayor Fenty.  “This will allow the District to rehabilitate our at-risk youth and build stronger, safer communities.”  

DYRS has established partnerships with key community groups, foundations, law enforcement agencies, District government agencies, and legal system stakeholders (judges, prosecution and defense).

Collaborating with these groups has allowed DYRS to ensure better futures for the youth and to establish safer neighborhoods by increasing supervision for young people, improving communication before placing youth in the community and determining standards for rewarding and sanctioning youth for good/bad behavior.

DYRS Initiatives

Partnership for Success Program
DYRS is working to expand the number of youth participants engaged in the Partnership for Success Program from 15 to 35. The Partnership for Success is an intensive social services and supervision program providing wraparound services for DYRS’s most at-risk youth. Services provided through the program include: school engagement, GED preparation; job readiness and training; counseling for behavioral health needs; treatment for substance abuse; and home visits and parental engagement. DYRS has partnered with several District agencies and community programs to implement the services in this program.

  •Metropolitan Police Department
  •Department of Recreation
  •District of Columbia Public Schools
  •Department of Mental Health
  •Department of Health
  •Department of Employment Services
  •Alliance of Concerned Men
  •Peaceoholics

Community Partnership for Public Safety
The Community Partnership for Public Safety will assist DYRS in learning more about the community factors affecting DYRS youth prior to their release from custody. Selected community groups such as, the Peaceoholics, the East of the River Clergy Police Community Partnership, and the Columbia Heights/Shaw Collaborative will provide outreach services to youth and ensure that participants are given the necessary tools to generate positive life outcomes.

Service Coalition
Working with local organizations and advocates that serve District youth and with their families, DYRS has designed the Service Coalition initiative to provide and coordinate a wide range of key services needed by at-risk youth. The initiative will help rebuild fragmented communities and involve young people in community development, thereby improving their communities’ outcomes by:

  •Promoting community cohesiveness
  •Encouraging reliance on community resources
  •Contributing to community development
  •Enhancing community capacity to respond to the needs of DYRS youth and families

DYRS will work to build the capacity of participating organizations to provide the highest quality service and will monitor youth to ensure their participation.  The Service Coalition has received philanthropic support that is unprecedented in the history of the agency.

Graduated Sanctions/Rewards Grid
DYRS has created the Graduated Sanctions/Rewards Grid to hold youth accountable for their misbehavior and reward them when they behave well.  DYRS has identified sanctions to manage non-compliance and violation of the agreement for community release. Sanctions range from establishing earlier curfews to placing youth in secure confinement. Feedback on the program has been provided by DC Superior Court, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), the Public Defender Service (PDS) and the Community Partnership for Public Safety.

“Our goal in creating these initiatives is to bring everyone to the table to develop solutions to the challenges our communities face. We can’t do the work of rehabilitating youth without opportunities, supports, and services for the youth in the neighborhoods in which they spend most of their lives, and I'm confident that the community can and will take ownership of that process,” said DYRS Director Vincent N. Schiraldi. “Through these initiatives, we are collaborating with youth and their families, community members, law enforcement, the Courts, prosecutors and defense to further improve our system with the twin goals of rehabilitating young people and making communities safer.”