The Center for Improving Youth Justice (CIYJ), formerly known as the PbS Learning Institute, Inc., is a community of passionate professionals dedicated to turning around the lives of justice-involved young people. We envision a world where a young person's circumstance doesn't determine their life course and where all young people have the opportunities and the resources they need to reach their full potential. Our mission is to improve youth justice outcomes for young people, their families… Show more The Center for Improving Youth Justice (CIYJ), formerly known as the PbS Learning Institute, Inc., is a community of passionate professionals dedicated to turning around the lives of justice-involved young people. We envision a world where a young person's circumstance doesn't determine their life course and where all young people have the opportunities and the resources they need to reach their full potential. Our mission is to improve youth justice outcomes for young people, their families and the community by integrating research into practice. We provide tools, resources and technical assistance to justice agencies and support justice-involved young people directly with scholarships, mentoring, reentry and employment assistance. Our national standards and continuous improvement program Performance-based Standards works in 32 states to integrate research-based practices into operations, programs, services and opportunities that benefit young people. Show less

Kim has more than 20 years’ expertise directing and managing a national non-profit organization dedicated to treating all youths in custody as one of our own. Part of the team developing Performance-based Standards (PbS) in 1995 for the Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Kim has helped create a data-driven improvement model grounded in research that challenges youth-serving agencies to meet the highest standards for operations, programs and… Show more Kim has more than 20 years’ expertise directing and managing a national non-profit organization dedicated to treating all youths in custody as one of our own. Part of the team developing Performance-based Standards (PbS) in 1995 for the Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Kim has helped create a data-driven improvement model grounded in research that challenges youth-serving agencies to meet the highest standards for operations, programs and services. When federal funding ended, Kim led the transition to a fee-paying system and the incorporation of the PbS Learning Institute to continue and expand PbS' capacity to improve the quality of life in residential facilities and programs for youths, staff and families. Her strengths include taking research and translating it into something the field can use – a practice, resource or report – and facilitating its implementation through communications that link positive outcomes to research, practices and standards. Kim’s technical assistance experience includes serving as a member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Models for Change National Resource Bank, focusing on collaborations to bring mental health services to youths in contact with juvenile justice. Reentry services have always been especially close to Kim’s heart, starting as a newspaper reporter covering a youth’s struggle to be released from a juvenile agency only to have his time extended due to politics, continuing to her Master’s thesis interviewing all youths leaving the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services to understand the relationships between shame, remorse and empathy and a youth’s reentry preparedness and most recently, teaching yoga to youths at the Rhode Island Training School as a tool to help them succeed while incarcerated and beyond. Show less

Newspaper reporter for about 7 years at medium-sized New England publications.