Advocacy is to be active and supporting towards a policy, act, or issue in society. Advocacy can include one individual, a group, or an entire organization fighting for a certain issue while trying to influence someone with power to change their opinions on that specific issue. In today’s society, there are many advocates supporting certain issues but for this paper I will be focusing on child advocates. What are child advocates? They are individuals, professionals, city councils, and organizations who speak out to support their best interest for children and protect their rights. These individuals are driven by their love for children as well as their knowledge on children and they know what is best for them that is why they become child advocates.
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Being a child advocate gives you that voice that children don’t have to be able to fight for what they deserve as well as to protect them.
Youth Street Gangs have been under the shadows for some time now but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there or that it is affecting our children. In the United States, there are approximately 1,000,000 adolescents who are processed by the juvenile courts every year (Henggler & Schoenwald, 2011). The issue on youth gangs is very important in today’s world because these gangs continue to grow, there’s an increase in violence as well as juveniles being detained. Given the bad reputation of the word “gang” and the influence it has on these children from affecting the safety of the school to even affecting their academic performance. Many research has been focused on youth gangs and who it really affects and it tends to be focused …show more content…
But, it does not stop there with being part of the gang comes violence as well in order to be welcomed you must do as you’re told and many times these tasks are acts of violence that get these youths arrested and at times end at juvenile courts. What really motivates these children to join gangs at a young age? The key concepts range from having family members/parents involved in gangs, peer pressure, protection, the need to feel like you are part of something (a family). Many of the children involved in gangs have had a traumatic event happen to them or are in a low socioeconomic status, at times like these gangs can offer that financial support, the protection, and the family atmosphere that many of these youths want and need. I have become very passionate about the issue and the involvement of youth in gangs due to having a family member who at the time was my age and in a gang. Being able to see how we both started freshman year together and we had the same goals to make our family proud but it all changed. Coming from a Latino/a background the term bullying wasn’t known, and for that certain individual he felt captured and his only solution at the time was joining a gang. Furthermore, seeing that the adults in school wouldn’t advocate for these students or that these so-called programs didn’t
Being a child advocate gives you that voice that children don’t have to be able to fight for what they deserve as well as to protect them.
Youth Street Gangs have been under the shadows for some time now but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there or that it is affecting our children. In the United States, there are approximately 1,000,000 adolescents who are processed by the juvenile courts every year (Henggler & Schoenwald, 2011). The issue on youth gangs is very important in today’s world because these gangs continue to grow, there’s an increase in violence as well as juveniles being detained. Given the bad reputation of the word “gang” and the influence it has on these children from affecting the safety of the school to even affecting their academic performance. Many research has been focused on youth gangs and who it really affects and it tends to be focused …show more content…
But, it does not stop there with being part of the gang comes violence as well in order to be welcomed you must do as you’re told and many times these tasks are acts of violence that get these youths arrested and at times end at juvenile courts. What really motivates these children to join gangs at a young age? The key concepts range from having family members/parents involved in gangs, peer pressure, protection, the need to feel like you are part of something (a family). Many of the children involved in gangs have had a traumatic event happen to them or are in a low socioeconomic status, at times like these gangs can offer that financial support, the protection, and the family atmosphere that many of these youths want and need. I have become very passionate about the issue and the involvement of youth in gangs due to having a family member who at the time was my age and in a gang. Being able to see how we both started freshman year together and we had the same goals to make our family proud but it all changed. Coming from a Latino/a background the term bullying wasn’t known, and for that certain individual he felt captured and his only solution at the time was joining a gang. Furthermore, seeing that the adults in school wouldn’t advocate for these students or that these so-called programs didn’t