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New Mexico Voices for Children
| Youth policy through a racial lens |
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To reduce the disparities caused by deeply embedded structural racism that put our minority youth at a disadvantage. For example, minority youth are more often charged and incarcerated than their white counterparts who commit the same crimes. Similarly, minority children are more often removed from their homes by child welfare agencies even when they are in the same familial situations as white children. These disparities exist even when socioeconomic factors are taken into account. Some specific goals are to:
- Reduce the number of minority youth in the corrections system by eliminating racial profiling and instituting alternatives to incarceration.
- Reduce the number of minority youth in the foster care system by eliminating racial profiling and providing families with more support systems.
- Improve the high school and college graduation rates of minority youth by ensuring that educational resources are available in the communities where they are most needed.
- Lower the rates of teen pregnancy and STDs among minority youth by improving access to medically accurate reproductive information and resources.
- Educate the media about how it perpetuates stereotypes with narrow portrayals of minorities and encourage more ethnic diversity in news organizations.
Race Matters analyses policies that perpetuate the racial divide, collects data on disparities, and works to educate the community about structural racism and its effects on minority youth.
As part of our Race Matters initiative, we created fact sheets with data, information, and policy recommendations about disparities our youth face within these social systems:
• Statement of Principles
- Disproportionate Minority Youth Contact in New Mexico's Juvenile Justice System Presenter: Judge Barbara Vigil, Children’s Court Judge, First Judicial District (29 slides; pdf)
- Race Matters Toolkit Presenter: Gretchen Test, MSW, Annie
E. Casey Foundation (37 slides; pdf; download
short version; 18 slides; pdf)
- Promoting Equity and Diversity:
Our Working Assumptions Presenter: Susan Taylor Batton, Annie E. Casey Foundation (2 slides; pdf)
- Juvenile Detention Alternatives
Initiative: Reducing Racial/Ethnic Disparities Presenter:
Raquel Mariscal, J.D., Annie E.
Casey Foundation (48 slides; pdf)
- Racial Disparities in Child
Welfare: What Do We Know & What Can We Do? Presenters: Gretchen
Test, MSW, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Romaine Serna, NM Children, Youth
and Families Dept (26 slides; pdf)
- Down to the Bone: Racism, Disparities
and Teen Sexual Health Presenter: Barbara W. Sugland, MPD, Sc.D., Center for Applied Research and Technical Assistance
(CARTA) (24 slides; pdf)
We launched our Race Matters initiative in May 2006 with a statewide conference using the tool kit developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The conference led to smaller community conversations and eventually, the formation of the New Mexico Race Matters Coalition and its statement of principles. The work also led us to investigate our own policies and to expand the diversity of our staff and Board of Directors.
Funding Source
Although we lack the dedicated funding to convene the Race Matters Coalition and continue to offer an annual conference, we are committed to the Race Matters principles and have made racial disparities the focus of other research and policy work. This work is paid for by generous donors like you. Please consider supporting our work!
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