We’re excited to announce a significant expansion of our Transformation Team! Over the past two months, we've welcomed three new members who will enhance our capacity to support and advocate for system transformation within Los Angeles County and beyond. This expansion will allow us to establish stronger collaborative relationships, facilitate more of our highly rated and requested trainings centered on the topics of Restorative Practices, Best Practices of Restorative Justice Youth Diversion, and Restorative Justice & Community Mediation, and continue to hold systems accountable to achieving more equitable outcomes for youth, families, and harmed parties.
For this newsletter, our newest members shared a few thoughts on their role and the expansion of the Transformation Team. Get to know them below!
Christina Castro,
Community Transformation Coordinator
What is unique about your role within CYS?
What makes my role unique at CYS is that this is a new role. This gives me the ability to learn something different every day from everyone. I do not have just one trainer, but a team that helps me grow and learn something different every day.
What are you goals within your role here at CYS?
My goals within my role at CYS are to establish strong relationships with the school personnel that we collaborate with. I would also like to learn more about the justice side of things and how our program impacts the youth. I would like to be able to do mediations with CYS in the future.
What about the Transformation Team is most exciting to you?
The thing that is most exciting about the transformation team is being able to have a group of people who are working on the same project as you. It feels a lot like being in school and everybody has a different part to contribute to pull the project together.
Fernando Carrillo,
Strategic Project Coordinator
What does systems transformation mean to you?
It means changing the current systems to better serve the communities and establish new lines that help, not harm, the progress of youth.
What is unique about your role within CYS?
It is a brand-new position within CYS which will assist in creating the internal training structure for the CYS team so that every member of staff receives the training they need to do their jobs.
What is the most interesting thing you have learned since starting your job here at CYS?
The most interesting thing is gaining the general knowledge of all the work being done within CYS, whether it be mediating, diverting, educating, or healing, it is a lot more than one can read on a website.
In addition to Transformation Team expansion, we have also welcomed 2 new members to our Training Team. This expansion is instrumental in our ability to do more system transformation work. Denise Yusuff, a long-standing member of the Training Team for 10 years now, has recently been joined by two new members. Kimberly Mercado Popp and Jamal Epperson joined the Training Team in May 2024. All three of these amazing staff began their involvement and commitment to CYS as volunteer mediators. |
Darryl Jones,
School Transformation Specialist
What about your new role at CYS excites you the most?
I was born and raised in the city of Inglewood. What makes me the most excited is being able to serve the communities I grew up in, and being part of change .
What is the most interesting thing you have learned since starting your job here at CYS?
It has been interesting to learn about the different teams and roles here at CYS. It is interesting to see my teammates have very different duties, while realizing we are actually rowing in the same direction.
What is unique about your role within CYS?
The amount of time I will be able to spend with school personnel in the school districts that we work with. The good people in those roles are hardworking, and I am happy to be part of something that will assist in making these schools a better place.
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Our End Goal
In collaboration with the entire organization, the Transformation Team is working to ensure sustainable access to and use of evidence-based restorative practices to end punitive responses within justice and education systems that continue to cause harmful and inequitable outcomes for youth of color, youth in the foster system, and youth who identify as LGBTQIA+. We also aim to create access to more supportive environments and community-centered resources to ensure youth thrive in safer communities.
Stay tuned for updates on the exciting progress and achievements that the Transformation Team, along with all the CYS teams, will soon be making!
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