These are the four values that guide our work.
Healing Justice: Our approach is working through a healing justice lens, which means to deeply strengthen our communities. We lead this through our experiences of beyond suffering, trauma, and survival. We believe we have the tools to heal and transform through our practices of Transformative Justice, Restorative Justice, and Disability Justice, that are integral to our communities.
Abolition: CIYJA is grounded in abolition. Abolition means removing all forms of a system, practice, or institution including detention centers and prisons. We are grounded in reimagining our communities without all forms of incarceration.
Transformative Justice: We address harm and conflict through a transformative justice lens which to us means a framework that recognizes interpersonal harm and accountability. TJ means working to change conditions that create, maintain, sustain, and support oppression, exploitation, and harm.
Youth Agency: We believe in youth agency, the power of young people to create change in their communities. Youth agency to us meaning youth collaborating collectively, creating solutions to the challenges and opportunities that impact them, and having autonomy.