Photo: Pat Greenhouse/Globe.
Jaaco, 19, demonstrated his skills at the DreamCutz barbershop in the Judge John J. Connelly Youth Center in Boston. Adrian Major, who runs the program for the Department of Youth Services, watched.
When we moved to Massachusetts decades ago, I somehow ended up on the mailing list of a charitable individual who had a lot of compassion for youth who’d run afoul of the law. I think he once worked for the Department of Youth Services. He raised money to buy these forgotten kids presents at Christmastime.
Judging from Katie Johnston’s recent article at the Boston Globe, the state has more ways to help troubled youth nowadays.
“The DreamCutz classroom in Roslindale looks and smells like it could be the training ground for any aspiring barber: mannequin heads with bushy afros and beards waiting to be trimmed, the scent of aftershave and clipper cleaner in the air.
“But the classroom is in a facility run by the Department of Youth Services, and the students learning to do fades and line-ups are locked in their rooms upstairs each night.
“Twice a week, young people at the Judge John J. Connelly Youth Center come to this former library, now decked out with spray-painted murals and a digital barber pole, as part of the statewide Skill Up initiative that launched here in 2023.
“Skill Up is the first standardized vocational program across all five regions in the DYS system, which serves 12-to 21-year-olds for offenses ranging from trespassing to manslaughter. Previously, young people could get silk-screening, culinary, and carpentry training in a few DYS facilities, but no formal training available to everyone. Now there is a $5.2 million budget and 23 programs across the state, including music production, bicycle repair, and horticulture. Participants earn $15 an hour for up to nine hours of skills training a week – money that’s released when they are.
“The job skills and money are important, but the less tangible benefits they gain from the instructors, who also serve as mentors, are just as essential, DYS officials and participants said.
” ‘It wasn’t just haircuts,’ said Jamari, 18. ‘It was getting to know me, wanting to know what I wanted to do with myself, even after.’
“ ‘It makes me forget that I’m doing time,’ he added. ‘It makes me feel like I’m just at a barbershop and I’m chopping it up with my friends and my family members.’ …
“Bikes not Bombs, the Boston nonprofit that runs the bicycle repair program, lets participants keep the bikes they fix and gives them the chance to apprentice for the nonprofit when they get out. Those in the silk-screening program designed and produced T-shirts for the Big E fair in Springfield last year.
Until recently, youth rehabilitation was focused mainly on education [Cecely Reardon, the DYS commissioner] said, but it was missing those who weren’t on an academic path. ‘They leave here with something no one can ever take away from them,’ Reardon said. ‘If we can help a young person be successful, that’s in the name of public safety.’ “
More at the Globe, here.
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