Founded by the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in 2012, Strengthening Chicago’s Youth (SCY) is a collaborative of over 100 organizations statewide seeking to build capacity to address the problem of youth violence from a public health approach and encouraging partnerships that benefit Chicago’s children. Lurie Children’s is ranked as the top children’s hospital in Illinois and has been ranked by the U.S. News & World Report as a top 10 children’s hospital nationwide since 2012.

In 2013, Bolster Mission organized and facilitated a series of exploratory sessions with Chicago community youth development providers to assess what, if any, coordinated action could be taken to reduce the population at the County’s Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) by moving more youth into community based support alternatives. SCY/Lurie Children’s was host to the discussion series.

By January 2014, the now 11 participating organizations elected to formally coordinate their efforts and adopted the temporary name JTDC Alternatives Collaborative. With Bolster Mission’s support and facilitation, the organizations agreed on a common vision for a care-coordination model for justice-involved youth. Bolster Mission visualized a “Blueprint” of the essential elements of the coordinated referral and intake mechanism the group had collaboratively designed; and in February 2014, SCY/Lurie Children’s accepted an invitation from the JTDC Alternatives Collaborative to become the permanent home of the initiative and staff its “backbone” supports.