Carol Biondi: A Behind the Scene Spotlight
Written by Jennifer Lisle,
Guest Writer
US funder and juvenile justice advocate serves on
high-level commissions but feels most passionate
about working directly with kids.
When Carol Biondi talks about working with the kids
at Camp G, her face lights up, her voice gets
passionate. “A lot of kids in the camps don’t
learn in the traditional way. By the time they get to
probation, all they’ve known is violence.
Violence in the home, violence on the streets,
violence at school. It’s really important
to expose them to the arts and other things outside
of their world.”
Back in 2000, however, when
Carol first started going to Camp David Gonzales,
there was no arts program; there wasn’t even a
library. So Carol started one herself, filling it
with volumes of poetry, books by Tupac Shakur and
other materials she thought the youth would relate
to.
“They wanted to express themselves, so we gave them a
voice, we started a camp newspaper,” Biondi says,
referring to Behind
the Wall, a publication that the kids at Camp G
continue to produce.
But Carol knew from
working with kids in the foster and juvenile care
systems in New York that a more comprehensive arts
program, like New Roads Community Partners, which
brought in US, could really help. Getting the
Probation Department to implement such a program,
however, was a monumental task that took years of
effort.
Joe Perez, who was New
Roads’ First Director when the program was finally
allowed at Camp G, calls Carol its “guardian
angel” and says her membership on high-level
committees gave her a voice that the Probation
Department heeded.
“I don't think the
program would have survived without Carol. Carol has
been an advocate since its inception, and she's been
a
champion for programs like US that are sometimes
difficult to effectively communicate to public
agencies and policy makers,”
Perez says.
Camp G has now become
a model program for other camps. “They do movie
reviews, music reviews, they write about the
Lakers. Some of them have never been to a play
before, and they end up writing one. It gives them a
sense of self-worth, and when they learn that, the
sky’s the limit,” Biondi
said.
Biondi now serves on a
growing number of high-level commissions, including
the California Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice
Prevention, making recommendations
for the distribution of federal funds, the LA County
Commission for Children and Families, overseeing all
county programs for
at-risk youth, and the Corrections Standards
Authority which administers several state and county programs.
But she continues to
spend her Saturdays at Camp G, helping kids who are
short on resources in any way she can. She provides
legal, financial and emotional support and helps them
get jobs and enroll in community colleges.
“What’s most
compelling to the kids is that you are there just
because you want to be. It’s a way that you can model
behavior for them,” Biondi says.
It’s a calling Biondi
has heard since she was a young teenager. “I’ve
always worked with kids. In college, I volunteered at
childrens’ homes and when I worked at ABC, I went to
local mental health agencies and helped out,” she
said.
She also attends every
Camp G US performance and usually brings a few
influential friends with her.
But while Biondi is
thrilled that places like Camp G have made enormous
strides, she remains outraged at how much more needs
to be done to make probation effective.
“The Los Angeles
Probation Department continues to fail our youth and
has exceedingly high recidivism rates. There are best
practice models all over the country that have
tremendous success with this population and
recidivism rates of 7-10%.”
A large component of
the best practice models involves supporting the
youth after they are released into their communities,
as this can be a delicate make-or-break period
for the youth and their families.
“Los Angeles County
needs to support the community-based organizations
that will make a difference in these kids’ lives and
prevent them from going back into the system,” she
says.
The County, Biondi
says, receives about $35 million a year as a result
of the Juvenile Justice and Crime Prevention Act to
develop communties’ capacity to support children.
Last year, however,
only $5 million was spent on community-based
organizations. Her current mission is to draw
attention
to this discrepancy and help steer county funds in
useful directions.
“LA youth who are
incarcerated are simply being warehoused. Community
involvement is crucial to help these kids deal with
the issues that led them to be incarcerated.”
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