The Youth First Justice Collaborative, founded by the current head of juvenile justice policy for the Biden administration, has named Michaela Pommells to be its new executive director.
“I am excited to build upon our successes and continue to work in partnership with state campaigns and youth leaders to end youth incarceration and close youth prisons once and for all,” Pommells said, in a statement announcing her appointment to the position.
Pommels spent the past five years with the Philadelphia-based Village of Arts and Humanities as the group’s director of organizing and social justice initiatives. Since 2020 she led the organization’s “Care, Not Control” campaign, an effort to end youth incarceration in Pennsylvania on the heels of a major exposé about abuse at Glen Mills, one of the oldest reform schools in the country, frequently used by the state to place adjudicated youth.
Pommells’ work on that campaign aligns with the founding mission of Youth First Justice Collaborative, which was the second nonprofit launched by Liz Ryan, who now serves as the administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the Biden administration. After working on efforts to prevent youth from being transferred into the adult justice system, Ryan founded the nonprofit to focus on supporting grassroots efforts to shut down juvenile justice facilities, especially large youth prisons and training schools.
Pommells succeeds Carrie Rae Boatman, a veteran consultant on youth justice who stepped in as an interim director after Mishi Faruqee left to run the Andrus Family Fund.
“Michaela…has a proven track record of successfully organizing and building power in frontline communities to promote youth decarceration and investment in community alternatives,” Faruqee said, in the statement announcing Pommells’ appointment. “I couldn’t be more thrilled that she will be leading the Youth First Justice Collaborative in its next chapter.”