Plenary Session: Getting it Right with Emerging Adults

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Stephen Bishop is associate director for probation and system transformation with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and part of the leadership team of its Juvenile Justice Strategy Group and Center for Systems Innovation. Bishop leads the Foundation’s investments and initiatives with youth justice system and community partners to ensure that young people exposed to the legal system can realize their potential, even when they make mistakes and violate the law in serious ways. Bishop’s portfolio includes leading Casey’s efforts to transform youth probation, end the youth prison model and reduce inappropriate and unnecessary use of secure detention. Bishop started his career in youth justice as a juvenile probation officer and supervisor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, followed by more than a decade leading statewide training, technical assistance and research programs at the Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission. The Pennsylvania governor has appointed him to the state’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee and the PennSERVE Advisory Board. He is the chair of the state’s Juvenile Racial and Ethnic Disparities Committee and a past president of the Pennsylvania Association on Probation, Parole and Corrections. Bishop has a Master of Science in Administration of Justice.

Lael Elizabeth Hiam Chester, JD, is the Director of the Emerging Adult Justice Project at the Columbia University Justice Lab. A graduate of Barnard College and Harvard Law School, she worked as the Albert Martin Sacks Clinical Fellow at the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard and then was an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. For 12 years, she served as Executive Director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ), a statewide non-profit dedicated to improving the juvenile justice system. She then served as a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, where she focused her research on emerging adults (ages 18 – 25). She has continued this work at Columbia University’s Justice Lab, where she conducts cutting-edge action research projects in collaboration with other researchers, practitioners, policy makers, advocates and people with lived-experience from around the country to increase learning and drive transformative innovations in this new field.

Derrell Frazier is a motivated public speaker and Social Justice Strategist who takes pride and ownership of his community. He championed the needs of the youth in the system, focusing on Advocacy and system innovation. A Baltimore City native, Derrell has a unique understanding of the challenges our society face and the importance of equity and advocating on their behalf. His passion reflects working to provide people with the tools and resources needed to thrive and identify their gifts and push stakeholders to address the issues affecting them. Derrell intends to develop innovative strategies that will create transformational IMPACT, EMPOWER & SHAPE the next generation of leaders! “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” – Frederick Douglass

Eric began his career working with Emerging Adults in 1999, mentoring young people and helping them build community connections. Between 2002 and 2013, Eric worked in residential group homes, providing programming for immigrant and Deaf/hard of hearing youth. Eric served as the Director of Heartland Aliance’s International Youth Center in Chicago from 2013-2017, and in 2017 became the Chief Programs Officer with the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri, ensuring rural communities had access to healthy food. Eric joined Nebraska Probation in 2019 and currently serves as the Adult Field Services Director, overseeing the implementation of EAJP’s innovative practices with 18-25 year olds in Nebraska.