ST. John's community health (sjch) seeks $400,000 over 36 months to implement a community-based stop the hate immigrant and transgender restorative justice program (program)

The U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance awarded a $400,000 Project Grant over 36 months to St. John's Community Health, a non-profit healthcare organization, to implement a community-based Stop the Hate Immigrant and Transgender Restorative Justice Program. The program aims to enhance reporting and data collection on hate crimes and incidents targeting immigrant and transgender communities, establish an effective task force to develop community-based solutions, expand public awareness and training in restorative justice approaches, and implement restorative justice mediations to reduce and prevent hate incidents in South, Central and East Los Angeles County. Key activities include hiring bilingual staff with shared lived experience, developing educational content and trainings, assisting victims in accessing services, and conducting restorative justice mediations. The project is funded through the Community-Based Approaches to Advancing Justice program (CFDA 16.047), which supports comprehensive initiatives to address hate crimes at the local level.

The program will add a program coordinator and outreach worker to our stop the hate team, each bilingual and with shared lived experience with the immigrant and transgender communities, and leverage sjch's existing deep connections to these communities to gather detailed reports and data on hate crimes and incidents against immigrant and transgender persons, assist victims in accessing services, conduct education, outreach, and trainings, engage the community in developing and implementing solutions, and develop and conduct restorative justice mediations to address hate crimes and incidents. The program will be focused on immigrant and transgender communities in south, central and east LOS angeles county, california (LOS angeles county service planning areas/spas 4, 6 and 7). Project activities include hiring a new, bilingual program coordinator and outreach worker, each with shared lived experience with target immigrant and transgender communities; establishing a task force to monitor and guide community efforts to address hate incidents; developing content, presentations and outreach to educate the target population and community; taking detailed reports from victims; directly assisting victims in navigating services and addressing incidents; conducting trainings; and developing and implementing restorative justice mediations as an available, effective resource for the community. Expected outcomes include greatly enhanced reporting and data on hate crimes and incidents against immigrants and transgender individuals; an effective task force focused on developing community-based solutions to hate incidents targeted against immigrants and transgender persons; expansion of public awareness and training of community members in restorative justice approaches to hate incidents; implementation of effective restorative justice community-based mediations to address reduce and prevent hate incidents; and a reduction in hate incidents targeted against these populations.