“Why Is Your Interpretation of My Experience the Only One That Counts?” A Comparison of Providers’ and Young Women's Perceptions of Their Needs

• Published date: 01 June 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00328855241240135
• Author: Jill Leslie Rosenbaum
• Date: 01 June 2024

“Why Is Your

Interpretation of My

Experience the Only

One That Counts?”A

Comparison of

Providers’and Young

Women’s Perceptions of

Their Needs

Jill Leslie Rosenbaum

Abstract

This article draws on the author’s 2023 Western Society of Criminology Paul

Tappan Award address on her seminal work with adolescent girls in Flint

Michigan. Echoing the major theme from that address, the article focuses

on the need for practitioners and academics to collaborate and more actively

engage in targeting programs relevant to the needs of young women. The Flint

study identif‌ied great discrepancies between providers and girls regarding pro-

gram relevancy and effectiveness, underscoring the importance of including

adolescent girls’voice in program development and evaluation, which is f‌inally

being addressed in contemporary programming.

Keywords

adolescent girls, youth engagement, community-based programs, program

providers

California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, California State University, Fullerton Division of Politics, Administration,

and Justice, Fullerton, CA, USA.

Email: jrosenbaum@fullerton.edu

Article

The Prison Journal

2024, Vol. 104(3) 296–317

© 2024 SAGE Publications

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00328855241240135

journals.sagepub.com/home/tpj

Introduction

If‌ind it funny how people tend to act like they know what you have been

through, like they ever took a step in your shoes. They transform their name

into Nike, so quick to judge you. Let me ask you, what do you know about

the hood, not just what you see on the news. Have you ever felt the true pres-

sures of our issues? What do you know about walking the streets at 13, knife set

in your pocket, ready for anybody waiting to rape you, take you into the many

abandoned houses that f‌ill the hood? It’s like eat or be eaten, beaten til you learn

to open wide and take your survival. Keiri (2011)

1

Understanding the realities of troubled youth and developing services to assist

them in becoming resilient across the lifecourse has been the subject of social

scientists and government agencies for quite some time. Academics, commu-

nity leaders, and funders have primarily been responsible for determining the

needs and practices of community-based programs (e.g., child welfare, mental

health, education, juvenile justice). Often, studies are incorporated into

actionable plans in a rush to meet grant deadlines, and only those in proximity

are consulted. In the translation of research into action, the voices of “experts”

are heeded, while the youth who are the experts on their lived experience are

overlooked. The result, too often, is programming that is not relevant to these

young people whose voices should be heard.

Evidence suggests that there is great value in engaging youth in the devel-

opment, implementation, and evaluation of programming. Increasingly, over

the last 20 years, studies cite the many benef‌its of including youth as partners

in research and programmatic development (Bozlak & Kelley, 2010;

Breckwith-Vasquez et al., 2007; Dyck et al., 2021; Hellstrom & Beckman,

2021; Hennesy-Lavery et al., 2005; Soleimanpour et al., 2008). As well,

incorporating the voices and experiences of these young people into the

policy advocacy process has been demonstrated to increase the success of

these projects. Not only did youth gain self-esteem through participation,

but they also established relationships with members of the community

who served as role models and mentors.

For justice-involved young people, Hutowitz (2022) argues that the U.S.

juvenile justice systems have not fully aligned their policies and practices

with a developmental approach—one that recognizes the need to:

1. Engage youth as advocates against system involvement by integrating

their voice and vision as agents of change.

2. Increase system-wide awareness of race, gender, and inf‌luences which

impact their experiences.

Rosenbaum 297