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YSRP Co-Founders and Co-Directors Named Juvenile Justice Champions by Philadelphia Citizen

YSRP’s Co-Founders and C-Directors, Joanna Visser Adjoian and Lauren Fine, were recently named Juvenile Justice Champions, a recognition bestowed by Generation Change Philly.  This honor spotlights and uplifts changemakers in Philadelphia who make our city better.

Philadelphia Citizen reporter Jessica Blatt Press powerfully captures the essence of Joanna and Lauren and their founding vision for YSRP, as well as the changes they’ve seen in the local landscape in their eight years of leadership of the organization they launched.

As well, in the article, Ms. Blatt reflects Joanna and Lauren’s bittersweet decision to transition out of leadership, and make way for a leader more proximate to the issues on which YSRP works:

Challenging the status quo is really important,” Visser Adjoian says. Over-surveillance of Black and Brown and poor communities, leading to mass incarceration, has not made those communities safer, she notes. “We have to take a different approach, we have to be more imaginative as a community when we’re faced with these kinds of crises and not just dig into what has never worked in the past. And we feel very strongly that those who are leading us out of these crises—those who are bringing the imagination and the capacity to create real change—are those who are closest to the problems themselves.

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