Juvenile Justice

JUVENILE JUSTICE

Questscope has worked for over thirty years in youth empowerment, implementing role-based mentoring programs designed to support vulnerable youth.

Youth vulnerable to exclusion, alienation, isolation, and exploitation can become anti-social and violent risk- takers. These outcomes ensue from a lack of belonging to communities in which adults build supportive relationships to safeguard them, help them successfully navigate an indifferent/hostile educational system, and ensure that the juvenile justice system provides fair and equitable responses to their issues.

Questscopes Mentoring Program targets at-risk youth and aims to develop pro-social behavior, support positive adult-youth relationships, and increase youths’ engagement in their communities. It empowers youth – who were previously at-risk of moving towards the role of delinquent – to become contributors, problem-solvers, and decision-makers.

Through allowing youth to develop relationships with adults in their own way, as well as reconstructing the ecosystem around each child, young people are better equipped to make positive choices and be productive members of their communities, with outcomes including reduced recidivism to violent or criminal behavior.

The Victim Empathy Program

The Syrian Society for Social Development, our Syrian national partner, provides mentorship, educational opportunities, and health services for 1,500 youth at two detention facilities in Damascus – one for young men and one for young women.

SSSD also implements The Victim Empathy Program to help youth who’ve committed an infraction take responsibility for their crime and understand the impact it creates on themselves and others.

This program is also implemented in community centers with the goal of building awareness around the personal and family issues that arise during times of conflict.

Facilitators help identify risk factors, discuss the impact of violence, and share ways to cope and adapt to uncertainty.

CIVIC Engagement

Questscope developed one of the largest civic engagement programs in Jordan, training thousands of student volunteers from Jordanian universities to mentor other thousands of young people at risk of juvenile delinquency.

Through these community-supported and transformational relationships, both youth and mentors are changed. Recruiting mentors from universities creates space for university students to become aware of marginalized people, serve their communities, and encourage volunteerism to become part of their culture. Community-based organizations play a vital role in creating open, welcoming environments for these youth.

They help facilitate guided mentoring relationships, family counseling programs, and educational rehabilitation that restores youth to a love of learning. Collaborative engagement means policies also improve – resulting in changes to judicial procedures, juvenile detention policies, health care access, and public perception of at-risk youth.

Questscope’s success in this area led to a joint initiative with the Jordanian Ministry of Social Development and the World Bank, expanding the Questscope mentoring model to every juvenile center in the country.