our impact
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
PROVEN SUCCESS.
Through early intervention and long-term support and relationship, we are changing lives and putting a stop to generational cycles of incarceration.
The Project Avary curriculum has carefully evolved over the past two decades of working on the ground with children and youth. The thousands of Avary Junior Counselors and alumni who have completed the journey, and their continued involvement and service with Avary, is our greatest testament to the success of our program.
In addition to the incredible success stories of we witness through the transformation of our youth, our program also undergoes a rigorous annual evaluation.
The results are clear: Project Avary works!
OVER
90%
of Avary youth show success and positive growth in key psycho-social factors that research shows are critical for healthy childhood development and for overcoming the challenges and traumas of parental incarceration.
ONLY
6%
of graduates have been involved with the criminal justice system. (Compared to a 30% arrest rate for the control group with similar risk factors)
84%
of Avary graduates complete at least one year of college
The success of our program is attributed to the foundation for healthy development and growth we provide for our youth.
We surround children with a community of belonging where they feel safe enough to begin healing and where they are surrounded by other children and adult counselors who have a similar life experience as they do. Within this community, they build strong relationships and share openly about how their experience has impacted their lives. As they grow through the program, we empower the youth with essential life and leadership skills, and then give them opportunities to put these skills into action through our Junior Counselor program.
The Avary youth’s journey is one of full-circle healing and leadership.
Within a community of support, youth face their struggles and use these challenges to learn, to grow, and to transform hardship into power and service to others. When youth heal their trauma and step into that place of service to others, they achieve the mark of an “Avary Leader”.
The Avary Leader then turns back in service to inspire and guide the next generation of youth to embark on their own journey, where they will follow in the footsteps of those Avary Leaders who have come before them.
This powerful and hopeful circle and cycle of leadership and growth, counters and replaces the tragic intergenerational cycles of trauma and incarceration that is perpetuated by our era of mass incarceration and is reflected in the model below:
“One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self confidence and inner healing.”