People often arrive at juvenile court with their guard up. Danielle Moore and Denise Gonzalez-Avila can understand why.
As “family navigators” based out of the Cook County Juvenile Center, Moore, 26, and Gonzalez-Avila, 41, meet waves of parents and loved ones of minors charged with crimes in the difficult moments just before or after a child’s first court appearance.
The pair works mainly with families whose children are awaiting trial or sentenced to probation or supervision. They can connect with families in part because of their own history with the juvenile court system: Moore was charged with crimes as a young teenager and Gonzalez-Avila has had two sons charged with crimes while underage.
“I see the cases that some kids get, and I share some of them,” Moore said. “I think that’s what actually gives them that push to trust us — they feel like we understand them and we’re not judging them.”
Moore and Gonzalez-Avila keep up with the families they meet at the courthouse and help with logistics such as transportation, information about social service agencies, or basic needs, including food pantries and helping kids get back into school. Michael Muhammad, deputy chief probation officer, described their work as part of an effort to move from a checklist of “Are you compliant with this, are you compliant with that” to something that gave children and families more involvement in pretrial release and on probation or supervision.
“You listen to the young people: what are your needs, what obstacles are you having to prevent you from completing services,” he said.
The county declined to release figures for how many families have worked with the navigator program in the roughly 18 months it has been operational. But a recent report from the Circuit Court of Cook County indicates that there are plenty of families who may need help with a pending court case: The number of juvenile delinquency petitions has roughly doubled from 1,424 in 2020 to just under 3,000 in 2023. The vast majority of those cases belong to boys 14 to 17, according to the report, and almost half who were found delinquent were sentenced to probation or supervision.
A recent workday for Gonzalez-Avila began just before 8 a.m. with a list of children up for initial court appearances after being arrested the previous night. That day, five kids were on the list, and Gonzalez-Avila had also made sure to meet with a boy who was back for a continuance in his case. He’d been doing well in school, she said and wanted to make sure Gonzalez-Avila followed through on a promised fast-food trip after his appearance.
Gonzalez-Avila and Moore spend most of their mornings making rounds of the courtrooms, introducing themselves to parents and guardians whose kids are facing charges and offering information about pretrial services.
Things pick up around 10 a.m., when most courtrooms start their sessions. Moore and Gonzalez-Avila typically set up in the courthouse lobby to speak with parents and families.
“They’ll want us to either help them get to release or (electronic monitoring), or they are really just stressed out, and they need to come in here to debrief,” Moore said.
“Here” is a small room near one of the building entrances at 1100 S. Hamilton Ave, which they have tried to make a respite from the activity of the courtrooms and detention center. It’s stocked with pamphlets on mentorship programs, food pantries and other social services and snacks, and decorated with reminders of what a person can control and a few basic mindfulness exercises. The navigators talk to families there, help people decompress and think through how they’re feeling and what they may need to do next.
They offer their contact information to families and stay in touch, reminding them of court dates and ensuring that they get to their kids’ appearances.
Others need help understanding the accusations against their kids or the court proceedings themselves. Gonzalez-Avila often translates for parents who don’t know English, working with as many as 60 families in a month.
Two of her sons have been charged with crimes while underage, she said, and she remembers how confused, stressed and afraid she was when her older son was charged for the first time.
When she came to court with them, she translated for other families so often that staff at New Life Centers, one of the social service organizations that works with the family navigator program and was helping her sons, encouraged her to apply.
She often offers her family’s story to parents she encounters in the courthouse to build trust and ease their nerves: “A lot of times the parents are kind of scared, so when you start talking to them tell them, ‘I had my experience here with my son,’ they start opening up to you,” she said.
Gonzalez-Avila said her sons are doing well now. One often comes home from his mentoring program and “brings a whole 20 kids with him,” she said. She talks to them “every day” and pleads with them to stop carrying guns. But she’s up against a strong culture of fear.
“They say they’d rather be back here than 6 feet under the ground,” she said.
She said she’s seen two boys killed soon after they entered the justice system.
Moore, the newer of the family navigators, applied for the job in part to honor a friend who was charged alongside her when they were both still girls. Jamayah Fields was killed in 2017 and Moore is now an aspiring criminal defense attorney, but still thinks of Fields when she passes Courtroom 11 and Courtroom 13 in particular, she said.
She tries to share her experience with other building staff and the kids in hopes that they will all see what their futures could look like with the right work and support.
“If I could figure out exactly what I want to do (by being here), maybe by interacting with the kids, I could help them figure out their lives,” she said.
