Program Manager, Youth PACT

THE ORGANIZATION

The Center for Justice Innovation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing community safety and racial justice. Since 1996, we’ve worked alongside communities, courts, and those most directly affected by the justice system to build stronger, healthier, and more equitable neighborhoods. With a team of over 900 staff and an annual budget of $130 million, the Center carries out its mission through three core strategies:

Backed by decades of on-the-ground experience and nationally recognized expertise, we bring innovative, practical, and lasting solutions to justice systems nationwide. Learn more about our work ovatingjustice.org.

Launched in 1993, the award‑winning Midtown Community Justice Center is one of the country’s first problem‑solving courts. It provides alternatives to fines and jail as a response to low-level crime. Seeking to reduce crime and incarceration and increase public trust in justice, the Midtown Community Justice Center works with neighborhood stakeholders to improve Midtown Manhattan and to serve the vibrant Midtown community, specifically those in need of services.

The court responds creatively to low-level offending, seeking sentences that are restorative to the victim, defendant, and community. Further, the Midtown staff engages in ongoing community engagement events to promote community wellness and to help connect people, in need, to voluntary services.

The Midtown Community Justice Center is seeking a Program Manager to oversee the Youth P.A.C.T (Positively Advancing in Community Together), a citywide diversion program for teenagers arrested for gun possession. Youth P.A.C.T aims to address the root causes of gun‑carrying and violence, identify supportive and protective factors for its young participants. The program provides a forum for young people and their loved ones to improve mutual understanding and communication, while facilitating connections to critical community‑based resources.

Using a restorative justice framework, the program includes two components over roughly 12 weeks: one‑on‑one sessions and restorative circles.

Reporting to MCJC’s Project Director and CJI’s Senior Program Manager for Restorative Practices, the Program Manager’s responsibilities will include program administration and coordination, iterating on the Youth P.A.C.T program model in collaboration with team members, supervising a Restorative Case Manager, providing case management services to young people and families, facilitating restorative justice processes, and liaising with the Law Department, Family Court, other CJI sites, and community stakeholders.

• Youth P.A.C.T program planning and oversight, iterating on policies and procedures, implementing systems, and developing curricula;
• Manage all aspects of the Youth P.A.C.T program, including referrals, data tracking, partner relationships, reporting to funders, reporting to Family Court and/or Family Law Department, and/or assigned defense counsel;
• Carry out day‑to‑day program operations, including participant outreach, screenings/assessments, intake, scheduling, space reservations, and monitoring completion of program requirements;
• Conduct comprehensive restorative justice screenings for all referrals and design individual intervention plans for accepted youth;
• As needed, provide connections to long‑term mental health care services to young participants;
• Supervise a Restorative Case Manager and support with building referral relationships with community‑based providers;
• As needed, join weekly sessions with youth participants to prepare for restorative circle(s);
• Support youth participant’s family, caregivers, and larger supportive community and prepare them for circles;
• Conduct support circles with parents and caregivers of adolescents and establish a peer network among caregivers;
• As needed, travel to neighborhood‑based CJI sites, or community‑based organizations…