Transformative Technical Assistance
Turning research and community knowledge into lasting systems change
Why This Work Matters
Public systems at all levels profoundly shape the lives of those who come into contact with them. Sadly, too often policies and practices fail to reflect the realities, strengths, and potential of girls, young women, and gender-expansive young people of color and their families causing harm and negative outcomes. The team at Justice and Joy believes that together we can change this.
Justice + Joy’s Approach
For more than 15 years, Justice + Joy has partnered with federal, state, and local agencies to turn research, lived expertise, and community knowledge into meaningful changes in policy and practice. We bring together young people, families, public agencies, practitioners, and community partners to understand what is causing harm, envision what must change, and develop strategies for putting that vision into action.
Through research, training, technical assistance, community organizing, peer learning, and collaborative planning, grantmaking, we partner with jurisdictions to improve coordination, expand local capacity, and create more equitable, community-rooted systems of care.
Our work does not begin with a predetermined solution. Each partnership is shaped by people who experience these systems and their harms firsthand, the communities already working toward change, and the opportunities and challenges within that jurisdiction.
Selected Systems-Change Partnerships
Justice + Joy’s partnerships take different forms depending on local needs and opportunities. Across projects, we connect research, lived expertise, public-system leadership, and community action to create changes designed to endure. The following are a few examples of current and past projects.
Minnesota Continuum of Care for Girls
Building on years of research with Ramsey County and community partners, Justice + Joy is co-leading a multi-jurisdictional effort to design a coordinated Continuum of Care for girls and gender-expansive young people who have experienced child welfare and youth legal systems across the Twin Cities metro region.
Young people, families, public agencies, culturally specific providers, and community partners are working together to identify service gaps, improve cross-county coordination, and develop more accessible, trauma-responsive, and culturally grounded pathways of support. The resulting three-year roadmap will create a foundation for testing new approaches and informing broader systems change throughout Minnesota.
New Jersey Justice Collaborative for Girls
In partnership with the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, Division on Women, Justice + Joy led a statewide initiative centering girls as leaders and advocates in efforts to reduce exposure to sexual and gender-based violence.
Research and community listening informed a statewide action plan, training and technical assistance supporting regional collaboratives across New Jersey, and the creation of a statewide youth advisory board. Youth advisory board members served as the initiative’s grantmaking and evaluation team, directing $90,000 in funding to youth-led projects and assessing their impact. The initiative culminated in the youth-led LEAD Summit, which brought together more than 200 young people, advocates, and community partners from across the state.
National Girls Initiative (2013–2019) and Reducing Risk for Girls (2021–2024)
With support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Justice + Joy led the National Girls Initiative from 2013 to 2019, working to transform policies, practices, and system responses for girls in and at risk of entering the youth legal system.
Through direct technical assistance, research, policy resources, national convenings, peer learning, and Innovation Awards grants, NGI supported jurisdictions and advocates in more than 24 states while advancing gender-responsive, culturally grounded, trauma-informed, and developmentally appropriate approaches.
During this period, Justice + Joy partnered with the National Women’s Law Center to release Gender Injustice: System-Level Juvenile Justice Reforms for Girls. The landmark report documented how girls are pushed into and through the youth legal system and offered recommendations for redesigning systems to address harmful conditions rather than punish girls for circumstances beyond their control.
From 2021 to 2024, Justice + Joy continued this federally funded systems-change work through the Reducing Risk for Girls cooperative agreement with OJJDP. Altogether, Justice + Joy has provided training and technical assistance in more than 32 states since 2013.
Across two federal administrations, Justice + Joy’s multiyear cooperative agreements with OJJDP were terminated before their planned conclusion. These disruptions underscore the vulnerability of long-term systems-change work to shifting federal priorities. Justice + Joy continued advancing the work, carrying forward the research, relationships, and community-led strategies developed through these national initiatives.
Transform Systems With People Who Know Their Impact Firsthand
Public agencies, funders, researchers, and community partners can work with Justice + Joy to move from listening and research to coordinated, lasting change.
