ACCESS is a project that recognizes the ineffective and traumatizing impacts of the confinement and incarceration of girls and gender-expansive young people. ACCESS supports and assists jurisdictions demonstrating a commitment to reducing reliance on incarceration and to building a continuum of community-based supports and services to address the specific needs of this population.

Set in a high school, You Don’t Know Me, a graphic novel about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), makes information about ACEs accessible to high school age girls and gender-expansive young people using an approachable, engaging, gender- and culturally-responsive, trauma-informed, and healing-centered format and style.

Justice + Joy convenes the 25 members of the Crittenton Family of Agencies providing direct services in 30 states and the District of Columbia to cis and trans girls, young women, and gender-expansive young people. Each Crittenton agency is an independent nonprofit organization ranging in annual budget size and service mix based on the needs of the local community.

Justice + Joy and the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) believe that the incarceration of youth on the girls’ side of the juvenile justice system can be ended by building stronger, safer, and more equitable communities where girls and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming (LGB/TGNC or “gender expansive”) youth—particularly youth of color— are no longer criminalized for the violence and discrimination they face and have the supports they need to heal and thrive.

Girls @ the Margin National Alliance (G@TM) is a connector of, and resource for, local, state, and national organizations and advocates working across sectors and systems to address root causes of the complex issues confronting marginalized girls, young women, and gender-expansive youth.

IMPACT is a national advocacy network being formed and led by young mamas from across the country. It is the result of research conducted by young parents focusing on the challenges they face and their ideas for change.

INVINCIBLE: A Mama’s Magic presents the empowering narratives of the young mamas of IMPACT through their writing and photographs by Judith Rae.

Conversations that centered the leadership and advocacy of cis and trans girls, young women, and gender-expansive young people of color.

In Solidarity is an intergenerational national gathering of young leaders, advocates, community-based organizations, and policymakers, hosted by Justice + Joy in 2017, 2019 and November 2023.

The LOVE project, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, will yield an advocacy training curriculum informed by and developed with, formerly incarcerated young women, women, and gender-expansive young people who are also survivors of violence.

The National Girls Initiative (NGI), with funding from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), focused on catalyzing change for girls in and at-risk of entering the juvenile justice system from 2013 to 2019.

The New Jersey’s Rape Prevention and Education Initiative is spearheaded by the Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) Division on Women (DOW) to build the capacity of communities across the state to reduce the exposure of cis and trans girls, young women and gender expansive young people to sexual violence by increasing opportunities for them to develop leadership and advocacy skills.

In response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Justice + Joy launched The Reproductive Freedom Fund to support and address barriers to access reproductive care, which includes abortion.

Through survey research, the Power in Our Truths report series provides deeper insights into their experiences and feelings regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, police brutality, and the related impact on their physical, emotional, and mental health.