The Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) is required by both federal and state law to conduct background checks on anyone who is authorized to care for or have unsupervised access to children in child welfare, juvenile justice and early learning programs.

Have you heard about DCYF’s Adolescent Programs division? It’s the agency’s first effort to align client-serving programs into one integrated team. Adolescent Programs focuses on the developmental stage of adolescents and creates programs and strategies to help DCYF provide services more efficiently.

“To reduce recidivism is not only an effort to reduce crime…it’s also to not allow tremendous potential to go unused in our young people...” – Governor Jay Inslee

Last week DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter joined youth from Juvenile Rehabilitation (JR), and many others, to present to Governor Inslee on reducing recidivism and increasing resilience in Washington State.

Last week, the African American Rites of Passage (AARP) culture group at Naselle Youth Camp hosted a black history month event focusing on the many nations of Africa. Youth decorated the camp gymnasium with traditional African clothing, artwork and educational posters. The event also emphasized the global scale of Black History Month and blended both historic and modern culture.