Today, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation announced Partners in Development Foundation (PIDF) and its collaborative partners known as the Opportunity Youth Action Hawaiʻi (OYAH) as one of the Racial Equity 2030 Challenge’s five awardees. The Challenge is awarding $80 million to help build and scale actionable ideas for transformative change in the systems and institutions that uphold racial inequities. Our project, “Kawailoa: A Transformative Indigenous Model to End Youth Incarceration”, was awarded $20 million dollars over an eight-year commitment.

The Kawailoa project is committed to replacing youth incarceration with a Native Hawaiian restorative system that empowers communities, trains youth healers, and shifts resources to community-driven and culturally-grounded sanctuaries of support.

In Hawaiʻi, young Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system. Before, during, and after, they continue to encounter setbacks that are indicative of systemic failures and generational challenges, and number far too many experiencing foster care, substance abuse, human trafficking, child welfare, and poor educational outcomes. The OYAH group represents community-based and state entities working to create positive pathways for Hawaiʻi’s most vulnerable population, including PIDF and its Kupa ʻAina Farm, Kinai ʻEha, Hale Kipa’s Hale Lanipōlua Assessment Center, Residential Youth Services & Empowerment, Hawaiʻi Youth and Correctional Facility, and Olomana alternative-education school located at the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center on Oʻahu. 

Launched in 2020, the Racial Equity 2030 Challenge was designed to help build and scale actionable ideas for transformative change in the systems and institutions that uphold racial inequities. The Challenge aims to unleash transformative solutions to improve the lives of children, families and communities across the world.

“This incredible opportunity from the Kellogg Foundation allows us to expand our innovative approaches that directly address racial inequities by replacing a punitive system with a sustainable, therapeutic model rooted in our cultural values and ancestral wisdom,” said Shawn Kanaʻiaupuni, President and CEO of PIDF. “We are a group of committed leaders and organizations who see ourselves as part of the solution to forward the foundational work accomplished in the last ten years to create a more equitable youth justice system.”

The challenge was announced in 2020, 90 years after the founding of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and received 1,453 submissions from 72 countries around the world. In September 2021, the Kellogg Foundation announced the top 10 finalists for the challenge who each received a $1 million grant and nine months of capacity building support. All finalists moved through a process of multiple levels of review, feedback and diligence involving peer applicants and multi-disciplined experts from across the world.  

“Partners in Development Foundation and the Opportunity Youth Action Hawaiʻi collaborative, already have a strong track record, and are continuing the work that has reduced the youth incarceration rate in Hawaiʻi by 82 percent over the last decade,” said Ciciley “CC” Moore, senior program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “They’re replacing youth incarceration with culturally rooted programs aimed at healing, which is drastically cutting recidivism, especially among Native Hawaiian and BIPOC youth. We are proud to be partners for the next eight years.” 

The Racial Equity 2030 Challenge was managed in partnership with Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that connects donors with bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems—including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity and climate change.

The Department of Human Services and Office of Youth Services is proud to be a partner on this journey to transform youth incarceration with a Native Hawaiian restorative system that empowers youth and communities.   

This incredible opportunity builds upon decades of juvenile justice reform in Hawai’i and propels us towards truly meaningful racial equity change and healing.  As stewards of the youth and land at the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center and Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, we look forward to the continued partnership and collaboration ahead to accomplish this joint vision.  We would like to thank the Partners in Development Foundation and the Opportunity Youth Action Network for their partnership, collaboration, and passion in making this happen. 

We’d especially like to thank the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for their vision of all children having an equitable and promising future and for their investment in us and the youth of Hawai’i.

Leanne Gillespie, Office of Youth Services

Learn more about the Hawaiʻi project to end youth incarceration at www.wearekawailoa.org. For more information about the Racial Equity 2030 Challenge, the awardees, and the finalists can be found at wkkf.org/re2030.

Social factors have a big impact on health and well-being. For instance, job instability can compromise a healthy lifestyle and lead to food and shelter issues. Homelessness further deteriorates one’s well-being, and chronic homelessness often leads to an early death.

Known locally and nationally as a high quality, affordable health care provider, Kaiser Permanente’s care extends beyond its hospital walls by investing in Hawai‘i organizations to address issues of housing and homelessness, food security, and economic opportunity. It believes that good health is a fundamental right and is focused on making a difference.

Ending Veteran Homelessness

Born and raised in Hawai‘i, Staff Sergeant Sterling Beair had difficulties assimilating to everyday civilian life when he completed service and returned home. For 10 years, he worked as a U.S. Army combat medic in Iraq and other missions and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Beair eventually found himself homeless for two years and then was incarcerated. That’s when he was connected to U.S.VETS, whose mission is to end veteran homelessness.

“He put his heart and soul into the program,” says Gregory Williams, executive director of U.S.VETS Barbers Point at Kalaeloa. “He got his associate, bachelor’s, got his master’s, started a career as a therapist, and then within the last year and a half was elected to the national board of directors for U.S.VETS.”

Not all veteran stories are as successful as Beair’s but U.S.VETS is there to support any veterans who gave of themselves to serve the country, should they need the help to regain their independence.

U.S.VETS’ ultimate goal is to keep veterans in permanent housing, and that requires a commitment from the veteran to do the work in addressing their personal challenges, whether that’s getting a better job, anger management issues, or substance abuse.

“I would say that no veteran that comes to us is without some kind of issue that they’re dealing with,” says Williams. “I wouldn’t necessarily say there’s a 100% correlation between those issues and the reason why they’re homeless, but for sure, those are definitely contributing factors.

“Kaiser Permanente generously awarded a grant for nursing support,” says Williams.

To support the health and wellness of homeless veterans, Kaiser Permanente awarded U.S.VETS a grant that staff s a full-time nurse at its facilities in Barbers Point and Wai‘anae. The nurse also visits Kama‘okū Kauhale village, a tiny-home community for homeless civilians and veterans that U.S.VETS operates in Kalaeloa.

The nurse provides health education and advice for minor medical issues that may include encouragement to visit a doctor or hospital. The hope in the future is to bring a doctor on full time or at least schedule visits once a month.

Like Beair, many of the veterans who live in Hawai‘i have some connection with the Islands and have probably served in Hawai‘i at some point in their career.

On O‘ahu, there were 3,951 people experiencing homelessness, and veterans make up 7% of the adults, according to Partners In Care’s March 10, 2022 Point In Time Count. Partners In Care performs the count annually to learn more about the homeless population and determines what solutions are needed.

“Most of our veterans who are experiencing homelessness are single, and a majority of them are also men,” says Laura Thielen, executive director of Partners In Care, a coalition of organizations dedicated to eliminating homelessness.

The 2022 report showed some positive news. Veteran homelessness decreased by 57% since 2015 and 44% since 2020. It’s believed to be due to increased efforts to house veterans through the “Mayor’s Challenge,” a national initiative Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell accepted in 2015, and the “Built for Zero” movement, started by national nonprofit Community Solutions.

Kaiser Permanente has actively participated in these efforts, as well as with local nonprofits such as U.S.VETS and Partners In Care.

“Many of them have trouble going through the VA [Veterans Affairs] system. It’s a complex system and there’s a lot of waiting, so that’s one of the big issues that we’ve seen is there may be services available to folks, but they have to wait a long time,” says Thielen. “That’s where the landlord engagement program and other programs we run really helps them.”

Partners In Care’s landlord engagement program finds landlords on the island who are willing to rent units to homeless individuals. In its three years, the program has assisted over 1,000 individuals get into housing.

Kaiser Permanente funds a landlord engagement program specialist specifically for veterans. Seanya Nakapalau, who’s been working in the human services field for 12 years, has worked in the position for a year. Last month, she assisted six veterans, including one family.

Her work entails screening veterans, finding housing, doing home tours, and working on relationships with landlords. The stigma of her homeless veterans sometimes makes it more difficult to house them, so she’s always searching for new landlords who are willing to work with them or decide to have a change of heart.

“Our job takes a lot of advocating and sometimes it can be more difficult to match a specific situation to a landlord,” says Nakapalau. She says the program offers incentives for landlords and points out that veterans have a consistent source of military benefits that can help pay rent. The specialist is there to help with any concerns, too.

“Some of the stories that my veterans share of how they got to this situation is very disheartening,” says Nakapalau. “I do think that some of them have a harder time getting housed because of all the trauma that they faced.”

When there is a suitable match for a veteran, though, she finds joy in the program’s success. “Going through the process with them, getting to know them and their stories, and then actually housing them is an amazing feeling,” Nakapalau says.

Turning Children’s Lives Around

“They weren’t born bad,” says Deborah Spencer- Chun, president and CEO of Adult Friends for Youth. “Circumstances happened to them along the way and so our work is to peel the layers and get to the core of who they really are. They’re really loving and really good kids and very respectful actually.”

Youth exposed to situations beyond their control, such as domestic violence, homelessness, and financial challenges, have a higher probability of dropping out of school or not continuing on to college. Offering support and guidance, Hawai‘i nonprofits, like Adults Friends for Youth, are there to help turn things around.

Creating Positive Pathways

With a mission to stop violence and create a peaceful community, Adult Friends for Youth serves 600 kids who voluntarily joined its programs on O‘ahu.

“Many of our kids are already engaged in some type of destructive behavior,” says Spencer-Chun. “A lot of them think we’re the police or someone they’re not sure about because they’ve had so many people in their lives, but we’re consistent. We keep coming back.”

The nonprofit has a 32-week curriculum over four years that’s tailored to each child’s needs, including healing from trauma, coping skills, and communication. It also discusses life after high school with the youth and helps them create a path forward, whether that’s in college, vocational school or the military.

“We’ve been real fortunate because a private foundation such as Kaiser Permanente has really stepped up, especially during the pandemic,” says Spencer-Chun.

Kaiser Permanente supports Adult Friends for Youth through a grant it provides for redirectional therapy. Half, or 300, of its kids take part in this form of group counseling.

“As long as they can redirect the negative behavior they have built along the way, if that can change, then the sky’s the limit for them,” says Spencer-Chun. “Success is not measured by money but by how happy they are, how much better they’re feeling about their lives now and how they’re trying to strive to do better.”

Another organization supporting youth in communities, Partners in Development Foundation helps foster kids by training local families and relatives who can take them in; runs a safe house for adjudicated boys; and cares for the 5-acre Kupa ‘Aina Farm on the grounds of the Hawai‘i Youth Correctional Facility, which has been renamed to the Kawailoa Youth & Family Wellness Center.

As part of a program, Kupa ‘Aina Farm programming offers minors from the correctional facility, as well as other youth, the opportunity to work on the farm, learn about food nutrition, and enjoy being in the outdoor space.

“All of our staff are trauma-informed and they support the youth by mentoring them and helping to grow positive behaviors,” says Shawn Kana‘iaupuni, president and CEO of Partners in Development Foundation. It also provides youth an opportunity to develop career skills by working on the farm.

“It provides a little bit of cushion where they can practice a bit before they go out and get that regular job,” says Kana‘iaupuni. “We’re able to support youth to become engaged as positive community contributors by supporting their workforce readiness and skills development.”

More Support to Lean On

Coming from financially challenging situations, children’s basic needs are addressed at the Boys & Girls Club, such as providing food or offering a safe space to decompress, so the kids can turn their focus on the future and having a successful life.

“Eighty-two percent of our children come from what are designated as low to very-low income families. We always try to have a healthy snack or preferably a hot meal when they arrive after school,” says Paddy Kauhane, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Club of Hawai‘i, which covers O‘ahu and Kaua‘i. Teens make up almost half of its members at 45%.

“One of the reasons we do that is kids who are hungry don’t learn as well. Kids who have full tummies are able to focus and concentrate better. For some of our kids, the last meal they have of the day is often in our clubs.”

Kaiser Permanente has been a supporter of its healthy living and athletics programs in the past, but in 2020, it started funding the club’s What’s Next program, too. The new program is for kids specifically who have higher needs and less resources than others.

“We bring them in, we start them at grade nine, and they go all the way through, in the same pod until they graduate high school,” says Kauhane. “Through those years, from nine to 12, we start to really intensely work on social and emotional learning, workforce development, career clusters, and applications for scholarships.”

The program has also taken the kids, some of whom have never left Hawai‘i, to the mainland to visit colleges. Following high school graduation, the club keeps track of the kids who have gone on to college or trade school, and helps them return home to visit families during breaks.

“The beautiful thing that’s happening now is these kids are attending college, and when they do come home, they’re actually working for the clubs now as interns during their summer breaks. So they get to earn money and still reconnect, and they also become adult mentors,” says Kauhane.

Similarly, the Boys & Girls Club on Maui has three major core program areas, including academic enrichment, character and leadership and healthy living. One of its goals is to focus on inclusion so as to increase teen engagement in programs and give opportunities for them to be a part of planning for activities and events, such as its annual Teen Expo, so they have a voice.

“Over the years, Kaiser Permanente has worked with us, supported our programs, our events, and in the past supported our big chef event which promotes culinary career explorations working with our little chefs and big chefs of Hawai‘i,” says Kelly Maluo-Pearson, CEO of Boys & Girls Club of Maui.

Cultivating Teen Leaders

Kaiser Permanente awarded a grant to Boys & Girls Club of Maui to support its leaders in training program, which gives teens healthy activities to engage in with topics of how to be leaders, social emotional learning, tobacco and vaping prevention and awareness, and healthy alternatives to drugs and alcohol.

“The leadership development is very important because what we’re trying to do is make sure that they really do understand and feel confident that they can do whatever they desire to do in life after they leave our clubs,” says Maluo-Pearson.

At the club, teens create resumes, do mock interviews, participate in club service and service outside the community, understand financial literacy, and explore different career pathways. This is also the first year the club will be sending a group of teens to the national Boys & Girls Club leadership development conference in California.

“We want them to be successful in their lives,” says TJ Daya, director of operations for the Lahaina Boys & Girls Club. “We want them to be happy in their lives and realize they can achieve anything they want if we provide them with the tools.”

Advocacy for Maui Businesses

Building wealth and creating jobs is integral to the physical and mental well-being of the community, and the Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) is focusing efforts on underserved populations.

The MEDB, whose mission is to inspire innovation in business, education and community in Maui County, received a grant from the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders funded by Kaiser Permanente. The grant has traditionally been used for the Latino community, but because its population is small in Hawai‘i compared to other states, the grant opportunity expanded to include all vulnerable populations, such as the Native Hawaiian, Filipino, and Micronesian populations.

“Kaiser Permanente wanted to make sure this kind of community asset development was happening in Hawai‘i,” says Leslie Wilkins, president and CEO of MEDB. “It really led us to focus on those underserved communities in our business outreach and development.”

The grants been used to work with community members and help businesses get fiscal infrastructure so they can continue to grow. MEDB also coaches on business reorganization and how to move into ecommerce.

“It’s so amazing how Kaiser Permanente doesn’t just invest in our physical and mental health, but they invest in the health of a community,” says Wilkins.

Delos Santos participated in a workshop, “Policy Briefing with Native Hawaiian Organizations” that addressed policy within Native Hawaiian organizations and highlighted OYAH policy priorities as well as successful measures from this past session. The community of engaged listeners looking to support Native Hawaiian policy developments heard about the passage of SB 2115, which will limit solitary confinement of youth and plans to reintroduce the youth emancipation bill next session. 

“Being a policy intern for OYAH has been the best and most fulfilling work I have done to date,” said Delos Santos. “And, it was amazing to hear about the current efforts of other Native Hawaiian organizations.” 

OYAH engaged college student advocates like Delos Santos to advance initiatives in support of its member organization. Priorities include Native Hawaiian equity in the criminal justice system, mental health, trauma-informed care, and the education, and wellbeing of youth. 

Delos Santos is a political science and sociology undergraduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa focusing on state policy and advocacy. She first joined OYAHʻs Policy Externship initial cohort in 2021 and returned in 2022. 

“I’m so inspired by young ʻōiwi leaders like Leah who become passionate, informed advocates for positive change in our state,” said Shawn Kanaʻiaupuni, President and CEO of PIDF and member of OYAH. “She and the other interns help build empathy and understanding about the daily struggles of justice-entangled youth who cope with homelessness, violence, and mental health issues stemming from historical and other sources of trauma. Their voices are powerful and will make Hawaiʻi better for all of us.”

Delos Santos supported policy work for OYAH at Kawailoa, which includes community and state agency campus partners: Partners in Development Foundation and its Kupa ʻAina Natural Farm, Kinai ʻEha, Residential Youth Services & Empowerment (RYSE), Hale Kipa’s Hale Lanipōlua Assessment Center (HLAC), and the Kawailoa Youth & Family Wellness Center (State of Hawaiʻi’s Hawaiʻi Youth Correctional Facility) and Olomana School. 

“OYAH and its members’ missions inspire me everyday and give me hope for the future of Kānaka Maoli and our lāhui as a whole,” said Delos Santos. 

As a policy intern during the legislative session, Delos Santos tracked, monitored, and testified on hundreds of bills that align with OYAH’s policy priorities. During the off-session, she joined OYAH in meetings with legislators and stakeholders to find ways they can collaborate and potentially introduce or reintroduce legislation. During her internship, Delos Santos presented as guest speaker for the virtual policy advocacy training for students, and wrote articles for Honolulu Civil Beat.

At 2 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, teenagers at the Residential Youth Services and Empowerment program have just finished their music therapy class. Inside the mint-green building, young people cook a late lunch over the stove and relax on overstuffed couches.

Located at the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center, RYSE began in 2018 as the state’s first emergency housing shelter for youth ages 14 to 24. Following the recent passage of Act 130, Hawaii can expect to see similar spaces emerge in the coming years.

Act 130 tasks the Department of Human Services with developing the Safe Spaces for Youth Pilot Program. The program aims to create shelters providing homeless youth with basic resources ranging from overnight housing to medical and mental health services on a 24/7 basis. DHS has $600,000 to create the program over the next three years and enter into contracts with local nonprofits already supporting homeless youth.

Priti “Maya” Tayal, community programs director at Hale ‘Opio Kaua‘i Inc., emphasized the importance of serving older youth, ages 14 to 24, under the pilot program. Most young people aging out of the foster care system and entering adulthood lack the resources and skills to find housing and become self-sufficient, she explained.

By getting young people off the streets and providing them with safe living spaces, the pilot program helps them avoid being arrested for status offenses, such as violating the state’s 10 p.m. curfew, said Sen. Joy San Buenaventura. The program will also address concerns about human trafficking by preventing youth from congregating in spaces where they are most vulnerable, she added.

“We want them to be able to be transported to a youth-oriented shelter and not be mixed in with adults who are better able to fend for themselves and not be subject to enticement and human trafficking,” San Buenaventura said.

The act builds on the ongoing efforts of local organizations and previously introduced legislation. As early as 2013, participants in the Hawaii Children and Youth Summit identified the importance of supporting homeless youth in order to reduce contact with the juvenile justice system, said Judith Clark, the executive director of the Hawaii Youth Services Network.

For the next several years, Clark and other advocates worked to bring Hawaii into the National Safe Places Network, which draws on local organizations and vendors to offer around-the-clock services to homeless youth in crisis.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” Clark said. “We’re increasing the connectivity of these villages, giving the children more places and people they can reach out to when they need it.”

Although legislation to include Hawaii in the Safe Places Network never became law, Clark hopes that DHS will incorporate aspects of the national program into Act 130’s pilot program. She added that initiatives to better support homeless youth are already underway.

Yet, Hawaii continues to face a shortage of centers that can accommodate homeless youth. According to data from the Youth Homeless Demonstration Program, Hawaii counted 222 unaccompanied youth in homeless shelters or on the streets in 2020.

Hale ‘Opio provides comprehensive services to homeless youth – but, because of limited funding, it can only operate as a drop-in center. No facility on Kauai currently offers 24/7 services to youth, forcing those in crisis to seek aid at community hospitals, Tayal said.

RYSE is one of the few organizations currently equipped to provide around-the-clock supervision and emergency housing, making it a potential nonprofit that could collaborate with DHS, San Buenaventura said.

In an emailed statement, DHS said it will hold discussions with community stakeholders as it plans for the implementation of the pilot program.

“The Safe Spaces for Youth Pilot Program will build upon the department’s recent efforts, which include the development of the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center in Windward Oahu,” DHS said.

RYSE is one of several programs comprising the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center, said Carla Houser. The executive director of RYSE said her organization would welcome Act 130 funding to maintain its programs. However, Houser added, DHS has yet to contact RYSE about a potential partnership.

RYSE is no stranger to working with state agencies. The program first received funding in 2018, a three-year ‘Ohana Zone contract dedicated to reducing homelessness in Hawaii. RYSE then developed programs ranging from financial literacy courses to care coordination services supporting youth who came from across the state to visit the Kailua center.

Tim, a 17-year-old at RYSE, currently takes GED courses from the Learning Center. He added that, with the support of RYSE counselors, he has learned how to navigate the job application process while expanding his understanding of what he can achieve in the coming years.

“If you’re willing to meet them halfway, they’ll meet you and help you as much as they can,” he said.

But public funding has recently run dry for RYSE. The ‘Ohana Zone funding expired in 2021, and the state chose not to renew the money in the midst of the pandemic. RYSE currently relies on community fundraisers and financial support from private foundations, Houser said.

Houser has mixed feelings about Act 130. The creation of the pilot program may not have been necessary, considering that RYSE already offers all of the youth services called for in the act, Houser said. But, she added, Act 130 provides a new opportunity to expand RYSE’s programs across the state, enabling the organization to serve young people in their own communities.

“I would have liked to have seen the state take more pride, because the state worked really hard to provide, from the governor’s office, these emergency proclamation ‘Ohana Zone funds and take a vested interest in the work that happened because of that,” Houser said. “What I like about this bill is it has the potential to support the outer islands and support others in the same work.”

Donovan, a 17-year-old currently residing at RYSE, said he welcomes the creation of the state’s pilot program. His favorite part of RYSE, he added, is simply having someone who knows him and cares about him.

“This place is amazing. It’s really a net for people,” he said. “We should definitely be more sympathetic to these people and at least give something because, right now, we’re not doing much.”

When Mark Patterson took over as administrator of the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility in 2014, he inherited 500 acres of farm ranch — and the care of 26 boys and seven girls between 13 and 19 years old.

By 2016, his facility, in Kailua, Oahu, was only holding between five and six girls at a time. And in June, the last girl left the facility.

For the first time, there are no girls incarcerated in the state of Hawaii.

Patterson said this moment is “20 years in the making,” and the result of a systemwide effort to divert girls from the judicial system and into trauma-based care programs. The number of incarcerated boys has also lowered significantly in the past decade, he added.

Patterson said HYCF is a last resort — the kids there “have run away from programs 10 to 11 times” and are the most vulnerable of the high-risk youth. But various state officials have agreed that “we no longer want to keep sending our kids to prison,” Patterson said.

“What I’m trying to do is end the punitive model that we have so long used for our kids, and we replace it with a therapeutic model,” he added. “Do we really have to put a child in prison because she ran away? What kind of other environment is more conducive for her to heal and be successful in the community?”

Hawaii isn’t the only state to reach zero girls in long-term placement facilities.

According to Lindsay Rosenthal, director of the Vera Institute’s Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration, Vermont has zero long-term placement facilities for girls, and for nine months in 2020, Maine had zero incarcerated girls statewide. Since February 2021, New York City hasn’t had more than two girls in the state’s juvenile placement facility at any given time.

After 35 years, a lawsuit over ‘inhumane’ juvenile detention in D.C. has led to major reforms

This is part of a larger trend in juvenile justice reform: Since 2000, more than 1,000 juvenile facilities have closed, including two-thirds of the largest facilities. And between 2000 and 2018, youth incarceration rates dropped by more than half, according to the Square One Project, a justice reform initiative.

But just as women are the fastest-growing prison population, the proportion of girls in juvenile detention has increased even as overall numbers have gone down. Researchers also estimate a disproportionate number of incarcerated youth are nonbinary or transgender, although there is limited data on this. As advocates point out, the majority of incarcerated girls are in prison for low-level offenses, often influenced by a history of abuse — as noted in various research — or systemic challenges, such as poverty.

Rosenthal said juvenile justice reform has progressed dramatically in the past 10 to 15 years. But she emphasized that a state reaching zero doesn’t necessarily reflect progress — Vermont has sent some girls to facilities in New Hampshire, and placed at least one girl into an adult prison, for example — without the presence of community-based alternative programming. HYCF is an example of a facility that has seen such an investment pay off, she said.

Gender-focused programming is essential, Rosethal added, because of “the criminalization of sexual abuse.” This legacy, she said, reaches back to colonization and slavery in the United States and has resulted in the disproportionately high incarceration rates of Black and Indigenous women and girls.

“No matter what girls are charged with in the juvenile legal system today, the most common reason why they’re incarcerated, which most leaders openly talk about, is that they are not safe in the community,” she said. “That’s wrong, and it has incredibly deep historical roots.”

The history of HYCF has also been thrown into the spotlight this year: In May, the Interior Department released an investigative report that found thousands or tens of thousands of children died in the custody of federal boarding schools, which operated between 1819 and 1969 and separated Native American and Native Hawaiian children from their families. Among their list of schools implicated in Hawaii are the Kawailoa and Waialee Industrial and Reformatory Schools, HYCF’s direct predecessors that merged into the facility in 1961.

The facility also received attention in the early aughts, when a 2004 Justice Department investigation found that the facility was in a “state of chaos” with rampant abuse. The American Civil Liberties Union won a lawsuit against HYCF in 2006, in which three young people charged the facility and its staff with homophobic and transphobic abuse.

Investigation finds burial sites at 53 federal Indian boarding schools

Patterson said the movement to replace punitive systems with trauma-informed care in Hawaii’s juvenile justice system reaches back to 2004, when Judge Karen Radius, a now-retired First Circuit Family Court judge, founded Girls Court. One of the first in the nation, the program aimed to address the specific crimes and trauma history of girls.

“News that there are currently no girls in the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility at this point in time is great news. But we know it doesn’t mean we have solved all the issues facing girls and young women,” Radius said, noting her concern that pandemic shutdowns and policy changes may have barred at-risk youth from receiving necessary support.

Many influential programs in the state followed the formation of Girls Court. In 2009, Project Kealahou launched as a six-year, federally funded program aimed at improving services for Hawaii’s at-risk female youth. And in 2013, Hawaii created the Juvenile Justice Reform Task Force to analyze the juvenile justice system in Hawaii and provide policy recommendations aimed at reducing the HYCF population.

Then, in 2018, Patterson partnered with the Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration and drafted a “10-year strategy to get to zero.” The overarching goal was to focus on the underlying trauma the youth were suffering from, instead of the crimes they were charged with, Patterson said.

Before working with youths, Patterson was the warden of Hawaii’s only women’s prison, the Women’s Community Correctional Center (WCCC), across the street. He said his time there showed him how many of the women there could trace their trauma back to their home life as a child.

That same year, he set out transitioning HYCF into the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center, remodeling the program around trauma-informed care — a framework for care providers to understand and consider the impact an individual’s trauma history has on their life and health. Today’s campus has a homeless shelter, an assessment center, a vocational program serving youths ages 15 to 24, a farm managed by a nonprofit and a high school for high-risk youths.

Guiding this transformation was Patterson’s goal of creating a pu’uhonua — a place created within a traditional Hawaiian village for conflict resolution and forgiveness — for Hawaii’s most vulnerable youths.

As Patterson described it, a pu’uhonua acknowledges and identifies a wrong that has been committed in the village. But unlike a punitive system, “we’re going to teach you how to live with the village and manage the wrong,” he said. “So that you’re no longer an outcast, but you’re still welcome back.”

Throughout decades of criminal justice reform in Hawaii, advocates have drawn attention to the disproportionate incarceration of Native Hawaiians. A study by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 2009 reported that Native Hawaiians were more likely to get a prison sentence than any other ethnic group in Hawaii, and that their prison sentences were likely to be longer.

Patterson said that in his experience, a disproportionate amount of teenagers coming to him are Native Hawaiians — both the girls and boys at his facility.

The OHA attributes the overrepresentation of Native Hawaiians in the criminal justice system to disparate treatment. Its 2009 report described discrimination within the courts, parole practices and during interactions with correctional staff. It also detailed culturally inappropriate reentry services for Native Hawaiians.

For Toni Bissen, executive director of the Pu’a Foundation, an organization focused on healing and reconciliation efforts related to the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, it all comes back to trauma: personal, historical and intergenerational.

“The generational aspect of loss and power, poverty, violence that just kind of compounds,” she said. “That is what is happening in these households. And that’s why drugs, truancy and different kinds of things are outlets.”

The Pu’a Foundation ran a pre-transition class for the last four girls incarcerated at HYCF. But another important task in the transition was identifying programs that could provide them with specialty care. For some previously incarcerated girls, Pearl Haven was that place.

Created two years ago by the nonprofit Ho’ola Na Pua (HNP), Pearl Haven is the first live-in care center on Hawaii for survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Jessica Munoz, president of HNP, said she saw a need for Pearl Haven when she was working as a clinical nurse practitioner in Hawaii.

“When I first started, we were arresting kids,” she said. “We weren’t screening for sexual exploitation or trafficking among the court system, among the child welfare system.”

Tammy Bitanga, a lived experience expert and outreach coordinator at HNP, sees the release of the girls at HYCF as a positive step forward. As a survivor of sex trafficking, she said she has also seen firsthand how the Hawaii juvenile justice system is changing.

She was trafficked in the 1970s, she said, when “there was no word called trafficking.” Instead, she was seen as an underage prostitute. “I hid behind that,” she said. “So I never told anybody what I was doing while I was on the run for nine months from the system.”

Now, the system is providing young women with the chance to look at “what was done to them, instead of what they’ve done,” Bitanga said.

Cathy Betts, director of the Department of Human Services in Hawaii, said reaching zero gave her “hope for the future” — and that trauma-informed care is necessary for “any work involving humans.”

For her, this is also a bittersweet moment: a reflection of many Hawaiians working to improve the lives of at-risk girls, which she saw firsthand while leading the Hawaii Commission on the Status of Women.

“You’ve got to understand that people’s blood, sweat and tears went into this moment,” she said, tearing up. “We’ve got judges that retired that weren’t able to see this moment, that passed, that spent their whole lives as attorneys and litigators and people who serve children and families who weren’t able to see that moment. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Patterson is now turning his attention to helping expand legislation on trauma-informed care. In 2021, state lawmakers passed a bill establishing a trauma-informed care task force within the Department of Health, which Betts is a part of. And on July 12, lawmakers passed a bill establishing a temporary office of wellness and resilience in the office of the governor, which is authorized to address issues and implement solutions identified by the task force.

Despite this progress, Patterson said, the job is far from over.

“This is not a zero … everybody’s finished, we can go home,” he said. “Now the question is sustaining zero.”

When teens and young adults first walk onto the fields of Kupa ʻAina Natural Farm, Zachary Huang doesn’t expect much from them. He knows it could be days before they talk or show any interest in the 5-acre farm that sits high on the hills of Oʻahu.

He doesn’t push. He knows they need space.

By the time they reach Kupa ʻAina, these youth have been in survival mode for most of their lives. They’ve been caught up in a series of broken systems that have left many generations of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) in an enduring cycle of poverty and trauma.

To break that cycle, the State of Hawaiʻi joined forces with the Partners in Development Foundation in 2020 to create an alternative to the state’s youth incarceration system and provide them with the community support so many of them never had.

To this end, the state partnered with several nonprofits to form an assembly called, Opportunity Youth Action Hawaiʻi (OYAH), to offer wraparound services at the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center – the 500-acre campus that is home to Kupa ʻAina Farm, the Hawai’i Youth Correctional Facility and a number of other youth service providers. The growing group of partners that make up OYAH are dedicated to using Hawaiian knowledge and cultural practices to help youth heal and find their way forward.

“A lot of the youth that we work with might be in their 20s, but they’ve been on the streets since they were 13 or 14,” says Huang, program director of Kupa ʻAina Farm. “They can’t put down their survival coping mechanisms until they’re no longer concerned about food, water or shelter.”

So, Huang waits. When they start to play in the fields, Huang knows they are ready to listen, to start talking about the hard things, to begin the process of healing from trauma.

“You have to meet them where they’re at,” says Huang. “You can’t force them to be somewhere or to do something. That would just re-traumatize them.”

For some participating youth, the farm offers a chance to heal and thrive that does not rest in a 4 x 8-foot cell at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility or out on the streets. That chance is at the heart of Kawailoa.

As part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Racial Equity 2030 challenge, OYAH proposes a bold, multi-year initiative to end youth incarceration in Hawaiʻi by 2030, replacing it with cultural and therapeutic programs aimed at healing.

The Situation

Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are disproportionately represented in the youth justice system. They face hurdles unimaginable to other teens and young adults in Hawaiʻi, experiencing the highest rates of involvement in foster care, child welfare, mental health services, special education and family court. Many are invisible in their own communities.

According to the Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Native Hawaiian youth:

• Represent 47% of all minors in the state who do not have a place to call home;
• Comprise one-third of the state’s youth population but over half of the youth in the prison system;
• Account for more than half of those transitioning into adulthood from foster care, often with no place to go;
• Are three times less likely than non-Hispanic Whites to receive mental health services;
• Are often vulnerable to and often die by suicide – it is the leading cause of death for this age group.

They receive longer sentences for petty crimes and are more likely to experience substance abuse, trauma, loss of loved ones, broken relationships, depression, human trafficking and economic instability. The services meant to support them are fragmented and hard to access due to frustrating barriers.

A Different Approach

That is why OYAH centers on supporting youth with aloha, which confers love, compassion and equity, allowing them to heal and to find purpose and meaning. Aloha is much more than a greeting. It is a practice. And, for Native Hawaiians, aloha is a deeply generative force that leads to equality and mutual respect.

Kawailoa houses state agencies and community-run programs on campus. As part of OYAH, partners cultivate an ecosystem of support to provide reciprocal learning between youth and adults, as well as housing, workforce training, employment, and trauma-informed care for young people.

OYAH works intensely to serve roughly 300 young people a year and plans to double that number to 600 as it expands partnerships across the state. The group focuses on NHPI and BIPOC youth ages 14-24, teaching them to embody aloha and become healers, so they can give back to the community.
“These are the kids who fall through the cracks,” says Carla Houser, executive director for Residential Youth Services & Empowerment (RYSE), one of the non-profit partners, which helps homeless young adults find temporary housing. “They’ve either aged out of foster care or have been kicked out of their family home.”

Hawaiʻi has the second highest population of youth in the country experiencing homelessness yet little access to services like those offered at Kawailoa.

“We [RYSE] were running a drop-in center in Waikīkī, providing all these amazing services,” says Houser. “But every day at six o’clock, we would close the doors and send these kids back out onto the street.”

That changed when RYSE started its on-campus program at Kawailoa. The program puts a roof over youths’ heads and offers them a chance at stability. It is an example of the support that NHPI youth need to begin to heal. Offering a place of belonging improves their ability to move forward and pursue their dreams.

Houser understands what young Native Hawaiians are up against. “Twenty years ago, I lived this life,” she says. “The only reason I got out was because I had trusting adults who didn’t judge me.”

A Journey Toward Healing

Machijah’s journey is evidence that the plan is working.

Close to two years ago, Machijah, who has spent much of his young life shuttling from home to home, was placed on campus at RYSE. He started his healing process by working four hours a day, two days a week. As he progressed, Houser helped him secure a full-time internship through a partner agency. Kupa ʻAina Farm hired him and helped him establish stable housing.

“He’s been with us almost one and a half years now,” says Huang. “He now helps his mother and his girlfriend. I’ve seen this again and again. Once these youth stabilize, they start to thrive. And they turn outwards to help their friends, their families.”

A Hawaiian proverb, shared by Hawaiian scholar Mary Kawena Pukui, states: “Mōhala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua,” meaning, “unfolded by the water are the faces of the flowers.” This is interpreted as, flowers thrive where there is water, as thriving children are found where living conditions are good. Like so, OYAH provides the conditions for young people to blossom. In the process, they are breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty and incarceration. “They become conduits to change the family dynamic,” says Houser. “They work with us to become healers within their families and within the community.”

Game-Changing Solution

OYAH aims to increase well-being for young people and reduce disparities for NHPI communities and others disproportionately impacted by the justice system. By 2030, OYAH will:

• End youth incarceration in Hawaiʻi, replacing the punitive corrections system with cultural restorative programs
• Double the number of youth participating in Kawailoa campus programming from 300 to 600
• Build a statewide network of care for justice-involved youth across island communities, organizations and agencies
• Establish a residential mental health treatment center in Hawaiʻi
• Elevate the state’s youth as racial equity leaders
• Generate a worldwide movement to replace youth incarceration with Indigenous healing practices

“Today, there are more Native Hawaiians in L.A. County than in Maui,” says Houser. “If we don’t create these supports, we’ll continue to see an exodus of young people who belong here. When they leave, we lose the culture, the language.”

Like elsewhere in the United States, the number of young people in need of mental health services continues to grow. But there are no local mental health centers for NHPI and other youth in Hawaiʻi. The state sends about 40 young adults to the mainland for mental health services annually. This has led to an outcry from parents to keep them home, and to OYAH’s plans to break ground on a mental health care center at the Kawailoa campus.

Hope

“Native Hawaiian culture and people define Hawaiʻi,” says Mark Kawika Patterson, who oversees the Hawai’i Youth Correctional Facility at Kawailoa. He fears that the culture could be lost within a generation if the youth don’t have what they need to heal themselves and their communities.

“Kawailoa represents hope,” says Patterson, who wants the youth to thrive but always know they can return to the Kawailoa campus whenever they want. “We provide them with the hope that their day-to-day existence can change.”

At Kupa ʻAina Farm, youth are learning to laugh and connect with the land. They are finding purpose. They could be the ones to continue working the land when the current generation of 60- and 70-year-old farmers retire and strengthen the roots of the culture that they are rediscovering.