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July 25, 2003
"Lateefah Simon, Center for Young Women's Development"
An interview with Lateefah Simon, Executive Director of the Center for Young Women's Development, and a 2001 Leadership for a Changing World awardee. Questions and answers will appear below starting at 1 pm EST on Friday, July 25. You may ask a question in advance by clicking on the "Submit a Question" button. Due to time constraints, not all questions will be answered. You may need to refresh your screen during the interview to read the most recent responses. Read background Leadership for a Changing World
Welcome to Leadership Talks with Lateefah Simon, Executive Director of the Center for Young Women's Development, and a 2001 Leadership for a Changing World award recipient.
Lateefah, can you give us a brief personal history and tell us how you became involved in social justice work?
Lateefah Simon
I was born and raised in the historically working class Africana American neighborhood named the Fillmore in San Francisco. Having grown up in a community and in a generation where Black and Brown children experienced very real traumas directly related to very real policies set by our nation’s administrative brass, I’ve never felt like I should do anything else.
Austin Texas
What have you found helpful in dealing with young women given an alternative to incarceration (drug treatment) who choose to stay out on the streets with outstanding warrants instead?
Lateefah Simon
Our experiences with girls on the run who have warrants who are still struggling with drug addiction are plenty. We deal with that every day and our approach is really developing trust in the young woman and providing an opportunity for her to begin thinking about how ultimately she’s going to have to figure out to take steps to get out of the system. It requires an enormous amount of patience on our part and understanding about all the issues she’s dealing with. There’s no right or wrong answer to this, how you deal with this particular girl with this particular circumstance. What we know that’s worked in the past is a young woman is equipped with the education and understanding about where she lies in the system and for her to develop tools to begin to get out of those circumstances.
Chicago, IL
Can you address what you feel are the most significant health issues faced by incarcerated young women and provide recommendations on ensuring continuity of care when they transition back to their respective communities?
Lateefah Simon
For low-income young women who come into contact with the juvenile justice system there are numerous health issues that we find that, unfortunately, when the girls are detained those health issues begin to come out because they don’t receive health care in their communities. So what we’re really seeing as the major health issues is that young women have a huge victimization history in sexual abuse and exploitation. And then of course you have girls who have never been to the dentist, girls who are doing sex work and have never been to an OB/GYN, who have never had reproductive health opportunities, girls who have children who never received prenatal care during their pregnancies. And in our experience when the young women leave detention the work over here has been advocating community organizations to continue providing services to the young women because it’s our experience that girls who are in the system don’t actively seek out health care or mental health treatment because the services are usually very linked up with child protective services or the girls always say I’m going to get caught again and have a fear of being found out and fear of going back into the system. Our response to that is to work more closely with this population, increase outreach to this population.
San Francisco, CA
As you challenge some of the laws or activities of the police and judicial system, do you notice any differences between how they treat men vs. the women that you work with?
Lateefah Simon
Our focus is really on advocating for the needs and rights of the young women in the system because we feel there’s a consistent lack of support for this population. And because of that. our work has been centered around the needs of young women. Therefore, we have only been looking at how our policy change efforts are improving the lives of girls. So in terms of male treatment and the juvenile justice system, because of our intensified work on girls, we haven’t yet looked at the implications of our work for the needs of boys.
Milwlaukee, WI
How do we continue to get the message accross that the female offender populations needs are much different than the needs of men and how do we do this on a united front as women of color attempting to do grassroots work without dollars?
Lateefah Simon
We need to be clear and have a united message of why girls are entering the juvenile justice system. They’re entering the system for very different reasons than why boys are entering the system. Close to 90 percent of the young women who are in our detention facilities have documented histories of sexual abuse, of exploitation, and of family members who have also been imprisoned. The conversation of the plight of girls in the juvenile justice system must be talked about more frequently and we must together as communities have some agreement on some practical solutions, solutions that look different than what the system is currently offering girls. The CYWD is consistently trying to get dollars for this work. It is our experience that it is almost impossible to meet the needs of girls who have so many needs without adequate support. I believe that we are in a critical time where we need to urge people who are supporting community activities to look at this population that everyone else has written off. Communities deserve to get the support in both dollars and in mind-share for bettering our communities, period.
Little Rock, Arkansas
Ms. Simon, your work sounds incredibly difficult. What do you see as the biggest challenges in your work?
Lateefah Simon
Everyday is a challenge. I have struggled to accept that others have given me the task of leadership. I take that challenge very seriously. I often get self conscious about how things come together but I think everyone in the work goes through that. I have also had trouble asking for help.
Our work here is surrounded by the painful realities of poverty, of historical racism, and the polarization of young people of color. Every aspect of our work is an enormous challenge, from raising money to working in an environment that puts children in cages.
I know that I am only beginning. I am still very young and have a whole lot to learn.
washington dc
Your work is not what America would define as glamerous--especially by standards held by youth. How do you get young people engaged in your work for the long haul?
Lateefah Simon
The CYWD challenge is to develop a movement of young women who have been previously incarcerated to speak up and to make change in their communities. So in terms of developing a base it hasn’t been very hard for us because there haven’t been safe spaces for girls who have been thrown away by so many institutions to develop their power. Our methodology is also focused on providing economic opportunities for young women so that they can become truly engaged in the work. We provide jobs for girls. Girls run our organization. And we are a 501-C-3 organization, we raise our own money, and that, again, is done by girls who have been in the system. And the work is exciting, challenging, but for young women who have lived these experiences it’s their reality.
LA, CA
How do you get people to work with you on an issue like this, especially those who might be working more than one job to support a family?
Lateefah Simon
That’s never been a problem for us. Young women who know what it feels like to be behind bars, young women who have been surviving on the street have been the ones who built this organization. I think it’s important to understand our philosophy. We do believe highly in paying people for the work they do, but we also encourage young women who are not employed at the CYWD to assist us in building this community. And because we have built a safe space, because we are there on court dates for girls, because we go see girls when they’re detained, because we’re working closely with the lawyers and the judges, young women get out and want to be a part of this work and want to use the education that they obtained and the advocacy skills that they’ve gained to assist another young woman.
San Francisco, Ca.
This is more of a comment than a question. I have known Lateefah Simon for many years, I cannot think of a more deserving person to get this award. She has worked to effect in the lives of many young women and men. She has certainly left her mark with us here at the SF Juvenile Probation Department. Congratulations.
Lonnie S. Holmes,
SF Juvenile Probation Department
Lateefah Simon
The San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department has been so open to the work of the CYWD. I feel like we are very lucky that our department understands the need for young women to create their own solutions. And because we’ve created a working relationship with the probation department we have been able to effectively provide outstanding opportunities for girls who are leaving the system. And we thank Lonnie and other members of the probation department for consistently hearing our concerns and moving on our concerns.
Magnolia, North Carolina
I am from a very small town in the country. There are a lot of teenagers here with low selfesteem and high pergnancy rate.
What are the steps or format did you use to help develope your center for young women and what advice or help could you give to develope a program here.
Lateefah Simon
My advice would be to get the young women from your community together and sit back and listen to the things they want to do, what they want to create, what will change their communities. Your duty would then be to galvanize the forces to make their ideas become a reality. The CYWD began in 1992 very similarly. There were issues that girls were facing on the streets, a lack of employment opportunities, a lack of real leadership opportunities for girls in the system. And our founder, Rachel Pfiffer, basically she did exactly that, she got girls together, figured out what was needed, and created an organization which she then transferred to those young women in 1997. So to us we really believe that young women must be the ones to create the actual programs. You will have a better success rate than if you were to sit alone and develop what you think girls needs.
Salem, OR
Being a young woman, do people ever question your leadership abilities because of your age? How do you deal with that?
Lateefah Simon
We are all questioned on our leadership abilities for one reason or another. I have experienced more racism than ageism. You’d be surprised by the comments that I get from well-intentioned folks. Each day I, along with my colleagues, just work harder to show the community that our work is real, honest and valuable. CYWD is very lucky in that San Francisco has been good to us. For the most part, we are respected as a viable component in the movement to create a more just society.
Santa Cruz, CA
What would you say is the defining characteristic of young women social change makers?
Lateefah Simon
Young women who are tired of being tired.
San Diego, CA
Who have you looked up to throughout your development as a leader?
Lateefah Simon
I look up to so many people. You have to be able to look at everyone you encounter as a teacher. I mean everyone. The names are too numerous to count. I must say that Dr. Angela Davis is pretty high on that names list, but our heroes are all around us. They are the mothers who grieve over their dead sons and daughters, they are the women who stand in welfare lines with their heads held high, the ones who struggle in their own battles with addiction, and they are the children who live on resiliency alone.
Seattle, WA
What would you consider your greatest victory thus far?
Lateefah Simon
Being open for 10 years. The fact that our doors continue to stay open and that girls know that this is a place where they can thrive, where they can be taken seriously, and where they can begin to develop the skills to create a new reality for themselves. Of all the great work that we’ve done, just to be able to walk in here every day and know that girls have a beacon.
Brooklyn, NY
Have there been experiences with the young women you've worked with feeling alienated once reaching adulthood? How do you deal with these issues of age-appropriation in your line of youth-working? What do you suggest to youth service providers, youth workers, as well as former youth-workers who have aged out?
Lateefah Simon
Although we struggle with the issue of aging out, we have come to the conclusion that knowledge and experience should be honored. And for girls who are 18 and become 19 and who are growing that’s actually an asset to us. For a long time I thought personally that I needed to leave this organization because I was growing up. And having been here since I was 17, now being 26, I thought that I had done all that I needed to do. And it was the young women who really convinced me and other “elders” here in the organization that our knowledge was important and that if we were going to become a force in the world that knowledge and the experiences needed to stay in the community that we’re creating. Although we provide spaces for girls who are not “youths” anymore it is vital that the younger women have the opportunity to develop their skills, to have decision-making power, so that they have a vested interest in seeing the agency on after those of us leave. So in a sense we continue to train a cadre of girls to do this work.
San Jose, CA
Lateefah,
What other organizations out there in California and the country are doing projects which are similar to the work you have done in SF?
Lateefah Simon
The CYWD is a part of a national network called the Community Justice Network for Youth that brings together organizations who are working with kids of color in the system. With over 80 member organizations we’ve been able to find organizations that both we can learn from and give information to. Every organization is different and must employ different strategies based on the dynamics of their communities and the needs of their communities. However, we have two sister organizations, one in Oakland, Young Women United for Oakland, and one in Brooklyn called Sister Outsider that have very similar models. The Community Justice Network for Youth, they can be contacted at Burnsinstitute.org.
Leadership for a Changing World
This will have to be the last question. Thank you for taking the time to join us today for Leadership Talks.
Lateefah, how do you sustain yourself and your staff while working on such difficult social issues?
Lateefah Simon
Our work is difficult. The poverty is real, the violence is chronic, yet there is still hope. In my 9 years here, there have been so many times where I’ve wanted to just stop and move on, maybe finish college, but the Center is my home.
Our staff are working together all day everyday to keep our vision and inspiration fresh. Just being together, taking walks, taking a day off now and then helps me develop a prospective. I am learning that burn out is a result of exclusion. I am trying to not hide my challenges anymore. I am asking for help. I cry when I want to now. I am learning how to model real self-care.
Leadership for a Changing World
Thank you for joining us today for Leadership Talks. For more information on Lateefah Simon and the Center for Young Women's Development, please contact:
The Center for Young Women's Development
1550 Bryant Street, Suite #700
San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: 415.703.8800
Fax: 415.703.8818
Email: lateefah@cywd.org
Web: http://www.cywd.org
Lateefah Simon
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