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This piece was originally published as part of our July 2025 YRSH Newsletter . Subscribe to our Substack to receive future newsletters and access exclusive content related to youth rights and safety. Youth Service Bureaus (YSBs) are a longstanding part of Maryland’s youth safety ecosystem—they support youth in need of services to help keep them out of the criminal legal system. Recently, however, the state has cut funding for YSBs—in 2019 there were 19 YSBs across the state;

Photo credits: Kahara via Unsplash When I toured the Evening Reporting Center (ERC) run by Pride Youth Services (PYS) in Rockville last year, their CEO, Ludley Howard, told us, “We are each other’s keeper.” That spirit was evident in the inviting space that PYS had created and the staff’s rapport with the young people there. ERCs are a community-based alternative to confinement—both prior to and after trial—for youth in the juvenile justice system. Until it lost funding last

Photo credits: Ahmed Nishaath via Unsplash We want Baltimore to know that we feel misunderstood, unrepresented, and underestimated. We are capable of so many things, but feel a lack of resources, limelight, and knowledge. We are just figuring things out as individuals, as we are not children, yet we still aren’t quite adults. However, society and law are constantly flipping between everyone expecting us to act like adults and the age when we actually become one. "We want Balt

Chronic school absenteeism rates have skyrocketed since COVID-19 led schools across the nation to adopt virtual learning. Students are considered chronically absent when they miss 10 or more days of the school year, out of an average of 180 days—including excused absences (like those for doctor’s appointments or other illness). During the 2023-2024 school year, nearly half (48.6%) of Baltimore City students were chronically absent. 1 Because chronic absenteeism increases the

In 2024, Maryland had the highest median income of all fifty states. But if you think that means our children are doing better than kids in most other parts of the country, you are wrong. And that’s troubling news, given what is known about the risk factors associated with child wellbeing and contact with the justice system. Maryland ranks just 21st in the nation in overall child wellbeing, according to the 2024 KIDS COUNT Data Book, a project of the Annie E Casey Foundatio

“Outside.” This is what I often hear when I ask young and younger friends what they are up to. My middle-aged ear hears it as a catchall for “something fun with friends” or “not at home.” It feels very teenager-ish—though some of my adult friends use it too. Whenever I hear children and teens in my neighborhood or at The Choice Program at UMBC, where I work, tell me they are “outside” this summer, I smile. And I worry. I smile because summer is supposed to be a time of fun