Over 60 family members and youth attended a Latino Family Night held at Victory Outreach Church on Tuesday, March 8, 2011. Part information session, part focus group, the event is hosted annually by Spanish-speaking staff in the Juvenile Services Division, Department of Community Justice (DCJ). “We offer this event to create a forum where we can hear directly from the Latino community,” explains Tori Lopez, a juvenile court counselor who specializes in gang-affected Latino youth. “We also use the opportunity to educate families about the juvenile justice system and what happens when a youth gets in trouble with the law.”
The entire evening was conducted in Spanish including several video presentations and the parent and youth focus groups. Dinner and childcare was also provided to all participating families. While the parents were broken into three separate focus groups, facilitators soon identified recurring themes for Latino families. “We heard a lot about the need for stronger advocacy for Latino youth in the schools, concerns about police profiling, and how gang activities were threatening their neighborhoods,” reported Lopez.
This is the fifth time that this event has been held with ongoing support from Programa Hispano, the Latino Network, and Victory Outreach Community Services.