BALTIMORE — For Pastor Ebony Harvin, working with young people is her ministry.
From South Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood, she witnessed children go without food to eat or a place to live, prompting her to open up her home to others.
When one of Baltimore’s largest shootings broke out at the Brooklyn neighborhood block party in July, leaving two young people dead and injuring more than two dozen others, Harvin walked the streets with grieving families to pray for the community.
And over the past two decades, she has delivered hundreds of eulogies, even for her own son who was shot and killed.
Now, Harvin is adding a new job to her long list of community outreach roles: Thrive Academy life coach. Harvin is one of more than 14 coaches the state has tapped for a new program Gov. Wes Moore (D) and other Maryland leaders hope will address the needs of at-risk children in the juvenile justice system to turn them away from gun violence — either as a perpetrator or a victim. The state partners with established community organizations to draw in Thrive coaches, who are already working with youths or mentoring others.
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Some of the questions Harvin asks Thrive Academy youths as they work to create a “life plan” include: “Do you feel that you have access to food?” “Do you have clothes that fit for all seasons?” and “Do you have a place to sleep inside every night?”
Many youths are in “survival mode,” and without basic needs, care and support, they can become involved in violence as a product of their environment, Harvin said. Some have lost family members to gun violence, are surrounded by neighborhoods that lack resources and drugs are bought and sold on the corner.
“Kids are not born murderers. They’re not born bad. Something in their life caused them to do some of the things that they’re doing. That’s why we have to get to the root of the problem, in order to fix any problem,” Harvin said.
The Thrive Academy is part of Moore’s plan to reduce youth violence, a topic that’s top of mind this legislative session. According to a report released by the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services last year, overall youth violence has been declining for years, but carjackings and handgun violations among juveniles have steadily risen.
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Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent N. Schiraldi, speaking at a Moore news conference earlier this month, said that crime prevention and rehabilitating youths, balanced with holding them accountable, builds safety “much better than after-the-fact punishment,” noting the state incarcerates more young people in adult prisons than all but three states. According to the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, 90 percent of youths charged as adults are Black.
“We must pursue two notions simultaneously, holding young people accountable for wrongdoing while helping them get back on the right track, all to improve public safety. That’s what Thrive’s all about,” Schiraldi said.
Launched in September, Schiraldi said the program uses a group violence reduction strategy to target youths who are most at risk of being victims of gun violence, or committing it, having analyzed 30,000 case files of system-involved youths over the past 3½ years and gathered intelligence from communities, DJS staff, police, public defenders and prosecutors.
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Once identified, those youths are given a specialized case manager and a life coach, Schiraldi said. Together they develop a life plan and are provided a personalized “suitcase for success,” which meets the young person’s needs through employment or service that offers stipends and college tuition assistance or vocational training. The program also helps with relocation assistance for families facing the danger of gun violence and fiscal incentives for participating and achieving set milestones, Schiraldi said.
With the announcement of Thrive and other measures to address youth violence, lawmakers have differed on the right approach, with Republicans saying more needs to be done to keep juveniles safe and to make sure those who commit crimes face consequences.
“This is not about incarcerating juveniles, it’s not about demonizing their behavior. It’s about protecting them, it’s about protecting our communities and protecting those children’s future,” said state Sen. William G. Folden (R -Frederick County), the lead sponsor of the Juvenile Justice Restoration Act that the joint Republican caucus is pushing for this session in Annapolis. The act “seeks to right the recent wrongs of new juvenile justice laws that have made it nearly impossible to ensure that there are appropriate consequences for young offenders,” according to the caucus.
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“These parents are pleading with our community leaders, law enforcement and community stakeholders, but if we’re not collectively, hand in hand, unified moving forward, we’re failing our children,” Folden said.
Moore has proposed a $4.4 million increase to grow services for the Thrive Academy, which would increase from 190 youth participants to 300 youths statewide, according to his budget. Schiraldi said that of the 33 youths in Thrive, based in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, none have been involved in a gun-related incident since participating in the program. Thrive has expanded to Prince George’s County, bringing the total to 47 youths, and will expand to Anne Arundel County, with those four jurisdictions recording 85 percent of the gun violence involving young people in Maryland last year, Schiraldi said.
Harvin works at “We Our Us,” a local outreach organization in Baltimore, as a credible messenger, someone who shares similar life experiences to those being served. In addition to her role at “We Our Us,” which partners with Thrive, Harvin serves as a pastor of New Solid Rock Pentecostal Church. She is also the owner of a used car dealership, a former hotel general manager, served as a chaplain for the Baltimore City Police Department and represented the Southern District on the Civilian Review Board of Baltimore City.
The first step Thrive coaches focus on is building a relationship with youths to help them feel safe, secure and loved — unlike the environments that might have put them at risk in the first place, Harvin said.
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When youths first come into the program, they are guarded, Harvin said. Most are wearing ski masks and hoodies to cover themselves up and sit by themselves.
But Harvin works with them through their life plan, defining their vision and purpose, and establishing personal growth goals, such as education, social activities and employment, and family goals, such as family bonding and coping skills. The life plan also has a behavioral health needs section, which includes fill-in-the-blanks on mental health and substance abuse.
Young people relate to her “realness,” she said. Harvin, a mother of four, often shares her own story of losing her 26-year-old son to gun violence five years ago. She remembers getting the call that her son had been shot in the same neighborhood where she raised him, Cherry Hill, leaving her two grandchildren without a father, like some of the teens she speaks with daily.
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“I let them know that I don’t receive another text message, another phone call, I want you guys to sit and think about sitting on that front row. ... Think about that mother who has to go through the pain,” Harvin said.
Harvin has three youths assigned to her, whom she meets with multiple times throughout the week, but described the whole team of life coaches and youths as “one big family.” Wednesdays are reserved for the group meeting for the entire cohort, 21 teens and nine life coaches, to learn more about each other and how to love themselves. The youths receive a weekly stipend for achieving their milestones — whether through calling their life coach, attending school or following the requirements of their court order. Harvin also keeps in contact with the youths’ guardians.
“If I can teach one, I can save one,” Harvin said.
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Though it’s only been five months, Harvin sees promise. She’s seen them get jobs, look for colleges, earn learner’s permits and begin to build stronger relationships with their families. Now some call her more than she calls them. This Wednesday, their activity will be to paint or draw a picture of the first time something hurt them, an exercise designed to get them to share their story. By the end of the program, for the next picture they draw, it will hopefully have less pain, symbolizing a rewriting of their story, Harvin said.
Thrive is a six-month program, but services can last longer as reviewed and needed by Department of Juvenile Services, according to Eric Solomon, director of communications for the DJS.
Harvin says she’ll be there for them regardless of time.
“You gotta love these kids until you love the hell out of them,” Harvin said. “I know that our young people can be saved.”
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