When tragedy strikes through a horrible accident, JaQuan Miller finds himself on the run in the backstreets of Boston. Torn between loyalty to the small band of youngsters he leads and the need to protect himself, JaQuan longs for the time when his grandmother provided security.
Hunted by the police, he seeks help from other young people while adults in the police, a reformed gang member, and women from the SAFE, a refuge for troubled youngsters, try to find or help him. While life goes on in the prosperous layers of Boston’s society, one young man desperately strives to find a way to live.
This novel is fiction but it is based on Nikki’s work with at risk young people at Mission Safe:
“In late 1996, Sister Anne Carrabino, S.S.S. and Nikki Flionis were awarded a contract by the Boston Housing Authority to work with families in the Mission Main Housing Development to prepare for demolition and rebuilding of the development as part of the HUD HOPE VI program. Carrabino and Flionis had met as they completed their MPA degrees at Harvard Kennedy School. Both had a strong background in community organizing, development and youthwork. Mission Main families had been held hostage to years of drug dealing, gang violence, sub-par management, and police aggression in the aftermath of the Carol DiMaiti Stuart shooting. After much community outreach and many meetings with families, Carrabino and Flionis determined that the greatest need was to work with youth who had “stalled” in life because of the trauma associated with the chronic stress of living in poverty and violence. Carrabino and Flionis founded MissionSAFE with these families, and focused on trauma-resilience strategies, personal growth, education support, and violence prevention strategies for middle- and high-school aged young people living in the Mission Main and its surrounding area.” https://www.missionsafe.org/history-model
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