About Me

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My name is Donna Marsh and I currently work as a Registered Mental Health Nurse in a Prison working mainly with young offenders with mental health problems. I have worked with young people for the past 7 years and find this client group very interesting. With the rise of knife and gun crime in England, I have many dealings with gang members and find it fascinating to find out why young people join gangs and engage in this kind of gang activity. Due to this, I have also been involved in the making of a DVD to raise awareness of knife crime in the UK in conjunction with the prison and a local school, this has been distributed to schools and Young Offenders Institutes across the country.

Introduction

Introduction to my blog:





This web blog follows my journey from England to the United States, where I will be meeting people who work within Youth Justice, predominately those who work with gang members both inside and outside prison.



My journey

My journey

Introduction

You can read more about me, the purpose of my trip, my story so far, what my plans are and what I hope to achieve in the supplementary sections below:



My story so far....

  • In May 2009 I decided to apply for a Fellowship with the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to travel to America to research the Youth Justice System, in particular youth gangs. I wanted to find out more about how the problems of gangs are tackled in areas of America such as New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

  • I started doing research into my intended trip in November when I received the news that I had an interview to help me to prepare for my trip if I were successful.

  • Firstly, I searched the internet for organisations that worked with gangs and gang members in New York, Miami and LA.

  • Once I had identified several organisations in each area that I thought would be of use to me, I sent them an email.

  • One of the emails I sent, was the New York Gang Investigators Association (NYGIA). They were planning on running a conference about how gangs are managed in the state of New York. Due to this I thought this would be a good place for me to start. I received a reply from the President of this association to offer me a place on the conference, as well as offering this at a discounted rate which was brilliant. I explained to him the nature of my trip and stating that I would only be able to accept this offer if my application for the Fellowship were successful.

  • In February, I attended my interview, for which I was extremely nervous, but the time flew by and I actually enjoyed it. I was waiting nervously for the result which came through in the post in late February. I HAD BEEN ACCEPTED, I WAS OFF THE STATES!!!!!!!

  • Once I had overcome the excitement of this, I went about planning my trip in more detail and contacted the NYGIA to confirm my place.

  • I then posted an email on the Gang Info mailing list, which was part of the National Gang Centre in America, explaining my plans for coming to America in July and the kind of organisation I wished to visit. I asked those signed up to the mailing list if there was anyone who could help me in my quest in any way. I receive many replies inviting me to come to their organisation to take a look at the way they work and how they are involved in supporting gang members to change their way of life.

  • I then set about the task of filtering these results, to see which organisations would be suitable and within the areas that I wished to visit. I then began email dialogues with many of these people who I planned to visit, keeping in contact with them until I actually arrive in July/August.

  • Through this email dialogue I managed to secure at least two firm contacts in each area including Council for Unity in New York, PanZOu Project Inc in Miami and Homeboys Institute in Los Angeles among others.

  • By this time I had also started to contact various organisations in the UK in an attempt to gain further information on how the issues raised in my proposal are managed here.

  • I contacted many organisation such as LEAP, Streets of Growth, Foundation 4 Life and The Adolescent Emergency Room. I organised visits to all of these organisations among others. All of the organisation worked in different ways and came from slightly different angles of Youth Justice.

  • Armed with the research I had already done, and the information gathered from the organisations I visited, I am now ready to travel to America to start my Fellowship, follow my progress below:

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