Case Study
Community Options for Youth: The Spin-Off of Esperanza NY, Inc.

Every year the New York City juvenile justice systems sends up to 1,400 youth involved in delinquency cases away from their homes and incarcerates them in private and state-run facilities. Over the past several years, more than half of these youngsters have been sent to confinement for committing a misdemeanor, such as creating graffiti or evading payment of a $2 subway fare by jumping over a turnstile. Nearly half of the youth who have been incarcerated on family court delinquency cases had committed nonviolent offenses. On average, each young person who is placed in one of these prisons for children lives there, away from his or her family and community, for 10½ months.

Every child who is sent to “placement” costs the city and state tens of thousands of dollars per year, in addition to costing the child his or her liberty. There is also an incalculable toll on the emotional and psychological health and stability of all family members when young people are removed from the home and family environment. In spite of this enormous investment, the outcomes are not good: more than half of these youngsters are re-arrested within nine months of returning home, and their recidivism rates rise over time. Eighty-one percent of boys and 45 percent of girls who have spent time in placement facilities are re-arrested within 36 months after their release.

The most recent Vera demonstration project to embark on the spin-off process is Esperanza NY, Inc. (Esperanza), which was created to safely reduce New York City’s reliance on confining these young people, while improving outcomes for youth involved in delinquency cases and their families. Esperanza works in close partnership with the New York City Department of Probation and other juvenile justice agencies to fulfill this mission. Since beginning direct service provision four years ago, Esperanza has served over 600 families, and since 2002 it has helped to plan and implement significant structural reforms in the way that New York City’s courts process juvenile delinquency cases.

In 2006, Esperanza was separately incorporated, and in 2007, it became recognized as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Over the next several years, Esperanza plans to build internal administrative capacity, while continuing to serve more than 200 families per year. In addition, Esperanza plans to continue to provide technical assistance and strategies for structural reform to government agencies in and around New York City, and it will also examine the possibility of offering its services as consultants to government agencies and other charitable organizations in other jurisdictions.

As Esperanza moves closer to complete independence from Vera, it will more readily be able to fulfill its vision of a justice system that truly places the interests of the child’s future first and uses every available option in order to maintain the child in his or her community.

[ last modified 11/5/2007 8:06:24 AM ]

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List of Spin Offs

Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation
http://www.artcny.org
tel. (718) 260-2900
Beny J. Primm, M.D., Director
The Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation (ARTC) started with one clinic in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in 1969. Since then, ARTC has grown into one of the largest non-hospital-based methadone treatment organizations in New York State. Its seven community-based methadone maintenance treatment programs and two outpatient drug-free chemical dependency programs have served more than 30,000 patients throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. In the past decade, ARTC added primary care, HIV/AIDS care services, and nutritional counseling to its offerings so patients can receive comprehensive health care and substance abuse treatment services in one location. ARTC also provides vocational and educational programs to help its patients find and maintain employment.

Bureau of Justice Assistance
In 1997, Vera partnered with South Africa's Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Development to establish the Bureau of Justice Assistance to help public officials there design, implement, and evaluate projects that would make the country's criminal justice practices more effective and humane. One such project, the Thuthuzela Care Centre, changed the way police officers, prosecutors, and medical practitioners treat rape survivors and prosecute this crime in the Cape Flats section of Cape Town. Women and girls who come to Thuthuzela receive medical examinations and treatment, counseling, and a chance to bathe and change into fresh clothing before speaking with police and prosecutors. In addition to providing better treatment, this model has strengthened rape investigations by police and increased prosecution rates. It has since expanded to more than ten sites around South Africa, drawn visits from representatives of other African countries and the United Nations, and inspired government officials in Chile to replicate the model in their own country.

Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES)
www.cases.org
tel. (212) 732-0076
Joel Copperman, Director
In 1989, the Court Employment Project merged with another Vera demonstration project, the Community Service Sentencing Project, to become the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES), with a mission to increase the understanding and use of community sanctions that are fair, affordable, and consistent with public safety. CASES continues to develop sentencing alternatives that respond to justice system needs today. The Court Employment Project is celebrating its 40th year alongside newer programs that serve placement- and jail-bound young women, youth newly released from custodial schools, adult misdemeanants, technical parole violators, and adults with mental illness who are charged with felonies. In all, CASES's ten programs currently serve more than 10,000 clients a year.

Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO)
www.ceoworks.org
tel. (212) 422-4430
Mindy Tarlow, Director
In the ten years since the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) spun off from Vera, it has places 10,000 former prisoners in full-time jobs. During this time, CEO's budget has grown from $6.8 million to $16 million, and its number of funding sources has grown from two to 30. It placed more people in full-time jobs in fiscal year 2006 than in any other year in its history and its job retention rates increased dramatically. In 1994, CEO served only boot camp graduates returning to New York City. Now, in addition to continuing to serve all such graduates, it serves 1,000 parolees a year returning from a variety of state prisons, and it is in the fourth year of a large-scale experiment that involves engaging city-sentenced inmates leaving Rikers Island, New York City's largest jail facility, with transitional work experience and job placement support.

Cincinnati Institute of Justice
Vera's staff began working with the Cincinnati Police Department's Criminal Justice Planning Section in 1972. As the project grew and attracted local personnel for new staff positions, it became less reliant on Vera, and in 1976 it became the wholly independent Cincinnati Institute of Justice (CIJ). CIJ conducted planning, program development, and assessment activities with funding from the City of Cincinnati, as well as the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department and the federal government. It had a significant impact on Cincinnati and Hamilton County's criminal justice system through its creation of a bail project, a station house release program, and an alcohol treatment program, all modeled after Vera programs. Although CIJ closed its doors in the late 1980s, local government agencies absorbed much of its staff, who continued the work of CIJ in senior management positions within the government itself.

Esperanza NY, Inc.
www.esperanzany.org
tel. (646) 278-2000
Jenny Kronenfeld, Director
Spun off in 2006, Esperanza aims to reduce the use of placement in the juvenile justice system by advancing direct services, structural reform, and technical assistance. Its direct services component operates as a dispositional option for placement-bound youth by providing individual and family counseling in the neighborhoods and homes where the clients reside. Esperanza counselors help to ensure that youngsters have enough support and supervision to become engaged in school and other productive activities. Through its structural reform and technical assistance efforts, Esperanza is working to achieve systemic change that will reduce the use of custodial placements for youth. To date, Esperanza has served more than 600 clients and helped save New York City millions of dollars in placement costs. Esperanza plans to increase its system reform and technical assistance work and explore the possibility of expanding to other jurisdictions.

Family Justice, Inc.
www.familyjusticeinc.org
tel. (212) 475-1500
Carol Shapiro, Director
Family Justice began in 1996 as the Vera demonstration project La Bodega de la Familia to provide support to families with a loved one under community justice supervision and to enhance family well-being. While the work continues at La Bodega on New York's Lower East Side, Family Justice has opened another direct-service learning center, Family Bodega, which serves Brooklyn's Brownsville and East New York neighborhoods. Family Justice also provides technical assistance to local, state, and federal government and nongovernmental organizations on incorporating family strengths to break cycles of incarceration. Family Justice has collaborated with entities ranging from the Chicago Housing Authority to groups that work with small rural and indigenous populations. By teaching them how to use proven, cost-effective tools, Family Justice is changing practice and policy to improve the lives of families facing complex issues such as addiction and mental illness in addition to criminal justice involvement.

Housing and Services, Inc. (HSI)
www.hsi-ny.org
tel. (212) 252-9377
Lawrence Oaks, Director
When Housing and Services Inc. (HSI) spun off in 1987, it built upon a successful track record of developing housing for New York City's nonprofit sector. As needs emerged and programs developed, HSI created four residential programs which it manages directly: Kenmore Hall, The Narragansett, The Cecil Hotel, and Scattered Site Program. Through these four programs, HSI provides permanent, supportive housing and services to 535 formerly homeless individuals and families each day. In 2000, HSI expanded its development mission to include affordable housing preservation, leading to the successful preservation of 1,865 affordable homes in the Bronx. HSI's programs serve low-income seniors, low-to-middle income minority families, youth aging out of foster care, and those with HIV/AIDS, mental illness, and substance abuse issues.

Job Path, Inc.
www.jobpathnyc.org
tel. (212) 944-0564
Fredda Rosen, Director
Since 1978, Job Path has helped people with developmental disabilities find and excel in mainstream jobs by providing employment services, community supports, service coordination, and supported living programs. Building on Vera's tradition of innovation, Job Path has started life-coaching program that includes college mentoring and job placement for intellectually capable people with the significant social and communication deficits that are characteristic of some forms of autism. Unlike most efforts which focus on research for a cure or interventions for young children, Job Path's program stands out by focusing specifically on the needs of adults with Aspberger's and other "high functioning" autism spectrum disorders. In doing so, Job Path is responding to the current and compelling rise in the incidence of autism and supporting a population that is not being served elsewhere.

Legal Action Center
www.lac.org
tel. (212) 243-1313
Paul N. Samuels, Director
The Legal Action Center (LAC) was established in 1973 to address the intersecting problems of addiction and crime by advocating for sound public policies on behalf of people with histories of addiction or involvement in the justice system, initally through a strategy of litigation to fight discriminatory barriers to employment, housing and social services. In the mid-1980s, LAC expanded its work to include public policy advocacy and, because it found that the HIV/AIDS epidemic was beginning to have a major impact on its clients, added AIDS discrimination to its mission. Today it stands at the forefront of the fight against discrimination against people with criminal records, addiction histories, or HIV/AIDS and serves as an expert on privacy and confidentiality laws. LAC promotes sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration and advances sound public policies such as expanding addiction and AIDS research, prevention and treatment.

Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (NDS)
www.ndsny.org
tel. (212) 876-5500
Leonard Noisette, Director
The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (NDS), a community-based law office that provides legal representation to residents of Upper Manhattan, was created in 1990 to address long-standing problems facing indigent defense practice. Its innovations—including location in the community, early intervention in the case, team representation, and working with clients to address long term needs—are now considered "best practices" and are being replicated in defender offices throughout the country and around the world. In addition to providing criminal defense, NDS offers civil represntation and social assistance to its clients. It also conducts a comprehensive youth leadership development program that seeks to give adolescents the skills to prevent their interaction with the criminal justice system and to advocate for positive change in their communities. Through this holistic approach, NDS aspires to make the constitutional promise of justice a reality for those farthest from its reach.

Neighborhood Youth & Family Services
tel. (718) 731-8900
Lizette H. Pait, Executive Director
Neighborhood Youth and Family Services (NYFS) began in 1971 as Vera's Neighborhood Youth Diversion Program, which aimed to divert youth people from the conventional police-probation-Family Court processes to a community-based program of assistance and mediation. As it continues operating in the East Tremont section of the Bronx, NYFS has greatly expanded its programs to include after school programs, early childhood services, services to prevent the placement of children in foster care or detention, domestic violence services, legal services, and permanent housing. Today, NYFS employs professionals in a racial, ethnic, and multilingual composition that reflects the communities it serves and cares for—not only youth, but their families as well.

New York City Criminal Justice Agency
www.nycja.org
Jerome McElroy, Director
Vera's Manhattan Bail Project, a groundbreaking reform effort that pioneered the concept of release on recognizance and offered an alternative to pre-trial detention for defendants who could not afford bail, became the Pre-trial Services Agency and spun off in 1977 as the New York City Criminal Justice Agency (CJA). Today, CJA interviews approximately 350,000 defendants a year and utilizes technology to substantially improve the way it collects and shares information within the criminal justice system. CJA interviewers now record their notes on handheld computers, which are later synched with a central computer so the information can be used by arraignment judges to make more informed release decisions. CJA partners with the New York Police Department and the Office of Court Administration to receive arrest and court calendar information daily and is currently working with the City of New York on an "E-Arraignment" system, which will link all of the criminal justice agencies together to streamline the process of compiling documents used at arraignment.

Police Assessment Resource Center
www.parc.info
Merrick Bobb, Director
The Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) is the sole organization in the United States whose principal purpose is to work both inside and outside law enforcement to advance civilian oversight of policing. At its founding in 2001, PARC leaders expected that a large part of the organization's work would focus on supporting the monitoring of jurisdictions that were subject to federal consent decrees as a result of policing abuses. When that did not come to pass, due in part to changing federal priorities, PARC began concentrating on work with other entities, including city councils, mayors, and auditors, looking at the accountability of their police services to try to ameliorate problems they may be experiencing. PARC has, for example, studied officer-involved shootings for the City of Denver and the City Auditor in Portland, Oregon, and supported the monitoring of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Town of Wallkill (NY) Police Department.

Project Renewal, Inc.
www.projectrenewal.org
tel. (212) 620-0340
Ed Geffner, Director
Project Renewal, first known as the Manhattan Bowery Corporation, began in 1967 as an alcohol detoxification program at a men's shelter. In its 40 year history, Project Renewal has influenced New York State to decriminalize public inebriation and set the national standard for non-medical urban detoxification units and other solutions to homelessness. It has also greatly expanded its services to include mobile health care, a free dental clinic, supportive housing, and job training. Since 1995, its Culinary Arts Training Program has helped nearly 90 percent of its graduates obtain food service jobs. Project Renewal now reaches out to 13,000 homeless men and women eahc year and has a staff of 600, 35 percent of whom were once homeless too. In 2003, it was one of 11 organizations nationwide to be awarded a federal grant to create innovative programs for the hardest-to-reach homeless individuals struggling with substance abuse.

Safe Horizon
www.safehorizon.org
tel. (212) 577-7700
Scott Millstein, Interim Director
Safe Horizon began in 1978 as the Victim Services Agency, an outgrowth of Vera's Victim/Witness Assistance Project, with a budget of approximately $2 million. Today, Safe Horizon has a budget of $57 million and each year helps more than 350,000 people touched by violence to move from crisis to confidence, making it the nation's leading victim services organization. Whether Safe Horizon is responding to child abuse, domestic violence, stalking, or other violent crimes, it provides the practical tools, emotional support, education and advocacy to help victims and their families heal and rebuild their lives.

Wildcat Service Corporation
www.wildcatatwork.org
tel. (212) 209-6000
Mary Ellen Boyd, Director
The Wildcat Service Corporation has served New York City for over thirty years. It was founded in 1972 by a group of public, civic, and business leaders to test the effectiveness of supported work programs for hard-to-employ individuals. Since that time, Wildcat's successful model has been replicated around the country. Wildcat itself has adapted the program for particular populations and developed worksites across a range of public and nonprofit agencies. It has also pioneered private industry partnerships and worked with some of New York's leading firms, such as IBM, which lent its support to Wildcat's training center. It founded the John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy, an alternative high school, and provides comprehensive creative workforce development services to formerly incarcerated individuals, people in recovery, mothers who are welfare recipients, and youth who have dropped out of school.

[ last modified 11/13/2007 9:19:41 AM ]

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Spin-Off Phases
The circumstances of each demonstration project ready for spin-off vary greatly. Nonetheless, there is a typical progression of the spin-off process, which we divide into three phases. The process starts with mapping out the benchmarks for independence, includes setting a plan to achieve them, and culminates in Vera’s total withdrawal from governance of the spin-off. During the process, the spin-off team works toward completing a core set of tasks that fall into three broad categories: administrative capacity, public image, and legal infrastructure.

There is a general order for the completion of the tasks, and each is usually completed in a particular phase. (For example, the project finds its own space in the demonstration phase and the Independence Agreement is signed in the spin-off phase.) However, many of the tasks may be completed concurrently and the order of completion may vary. For this reason, the phases of spin-off cannot be neatly marked by the completion of a particular set of tasks. Still, thinking of spin-off as three distinct phases is a useful way to conceptualize and organize the process.

Phase One: Demonstration (Typically three to five years)
During this phase, the project is operating as part of Vera. Project staff are Vera employees, and the project gets all the legal, operational, and managerial support the relationship affords.

In contrast to Vera's research and technical assistance projects, from the moment a demonstration project is conceived, Vera begins considering whether spin-off should be pursued. The answer is not always clear at the outset. But as a demonstration project matures and the demand for its services grows, its effectiveness and value are recognized and spin-off may become a natural next step. In fact, a successful project often begins to take the shape of an independent entity well before the formal spin-off process begins: it is known by a separate name that may become the name of the spin-off; it begins to generate stable revenue; it acquires its own work space, suppliers, personnel, key advisors, and supporters; and it develops its own organizational culture and identity. Such natural development facilitates the spin-off process, but the real steps toward spin-off are creating a plan and timeline for completing the tasks that will be undertaken during the next phase and separately incorporating the project.

Phase Two: Spin-Off (Typically one to three years)
In this phase, Vera staff and the spin-off director work together to move the spin-off toward total independence. Early in this phase, the new corporation files for federal tax-exempt status and enters into an Independence Agreement with Vera.

The spin-off begins operating as an independent organization: it has its own legal identity, employees, board, banking relationships, and accounting systems, and the spin-off director, rather than Vera's management, handles its day-to-day oprerations. To ensure the spin-off's success and to protect Vera’s remaining interests, Vera continues to exercise some control over the spin-off by reserving for itself the role of "sole member" of the spin-off. Through this mechanism, which is specified in the spin-off's bylaws, Vera retains the authority to appoint and remove trustees and to modify certain sections of the bylaws. Only Vera can remove itself as the sole member of the board. In addition, Vera’s director sits on the board and, as a trustee, works to encourage strong relations between the spin-off director and the spin-off board. The director also brings to the spin-off board Vera's experience and knowledge about guiding newly-created organizations.

The Independence Agreement, executed during this phase, lays out the steps the spin-off has taken toward independence, the obligations of Vera and the spin-off going forward, the ways they will cooperate during this period, and the benchmarks the spin-off must meet before total independence can be achieved. Although the needs and strengths of each spin-off vary, benchmarks such as diversifying funding streams, obtaining all contracts and grants in the spin-off’s own name, and building operational, administrative and legal capacity typically appear in all Independence Agreements.

Phase Three: Total Independence
Once a spin-off has met the goals set out in the Independence Agreement, Vera removes itself as the sole member of the spin-off board. The newly independent organization can then elect its own trustees and fully govern itself. Most organizations created by Vera maintain close ties with Vera well into the future. Joint projects between Vera and its spin-offs are common, especially as each spin-off grows and develops its portfolio of work. In most cases, it is not long before the spin-off’s knowledge in its area of work has surpassed Vera’s.

[ last modified 11/5/2007 7:59:58 AM ]

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