New Day

Love and Accountability: New Day Stands Up for Teens

By Amanda C. Kooser

new-daySteve Johnson is changing the concept of what a youth shelter is. Johnson is the executive director of New Day Youth & Family Services in Albuquerque (www.ndnm.org) and a core team member for the Albuquerque Safe Schools/Healthy Students initiative. In just a year and a half at New Day, he has launched a Life Skills Academy, boosted the detention diversion program and shifted the atmosphere at the shelter. Johnson sums up his goals. "We really want to become experts at working with teenagers. Bring us these tough kids. We like them," he says. New Day can house up to eight boys and eight girls at a time. The organization serves around 1000 youth per year, with several hundred spending time at the shelter.

Learning to Live

Shelters have a reputation for being temporary stop offs en route to other shelters. At New Day, the idea is to give kids a stable place to get grounded. The teens may stay for as long as 90 days. "They can start building a future for themselves instead of running to the next place. It's creating a very different picture of a shelter from being a transient, loose place to being a very focused, intentional experience. That is the shift we are making," says Johnson.

"They can start building a future for themselves instead of running to the next place. It's creating a very different picture of a shelter from being a transient, loose place to being a very focused, intentional experience. That is the shift we are making,"

Part of that experience is the Life Skills Academy. The teens learn basic cleaning, cooking, laundry, money management, job preparation and relationship skills. "Their skill sets are really limited because they often haven't had that kind of parental involvement to teach them," says Johnson. He plans to open up the academy to engage with all sorts of youth from the community in addition to the ones that stay at the shelter.

New Day also works with the teens to craft a vision for their futures. "They are bright kids. They are good-hearted kids. But they don't have a good sense of their future. They are in a survival mode where you don't make good decisions," says Johnson. New Day's vision program encourages the teens to look ahead, make plans and set goals, even if it's just a few months into the future. "I'm watching it work. There's a sense they are going someplace," says Johnson.

A Good Diversion

Teens come to New Day through many different avenues. They may be sent by school resource officers, brought in by police for minor infractions, referred from services organizations or need a place to stay after a family argument. It can provide an alternative to taking the teens to a detention center. At New Day, they get immediate attention designed to divert them from falling further into problem activities. The program is working. "We get a routine list of all the kids that have been put in the detention center in Sandoval County and we compare it to the list of kids that come to us to see how many of our kids end up back in detention within a year. It's under 5 percent right now," says Johnson.

Replacing Rules with Responsibility

New Day accepts every teen that needs a place. The doors aren't ever locked. Johnson replaced the shelter's previous laundry list of rules with just a few key concepts focusing on personal responsibility and being mindful of others. “We call it love and accountability. Our message is that we're going to love you and there's nothing you can do to stop us from loving you. And we're going to have really high expectations and we're going to hold you accountable for your behavior,” says Johnson. New Day has a bright future ahead. Johnson is focusing on building out the Life Skills Academy and working with the community to find creative and supportive places for the teens to go after their time at the shelter. At New Day, they are always welcome to come back to visit.