RISE Lab

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Researching Inequity in Society Ecologically (RISE) Lab

Mission Statement
The Researching Inequity in Society Ecologically (RISE) Team advances research and knowledge to improve the lives of traditionally marginalized youth populations, focusing on urban poverty, court-involved women and youth, and adolescents at high risk for court involvement, through the rigorous application of translational, interdisciplinary research paradigms. The RISE Team envisions, develops and enacts research and interventions with and for the communities we study.

Vision Statement
The Researching Inequity in Society Ecologically (RISE) Team in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University takes an innovative, multidisciplinary approach to addressing oppression and oppression-related health and mental health disparities, particularly amongst youth. In doing so, we train the future generation of behavioral and clinical researchers, and work with community partners, such as NYC Child Welfare Services (ACS) and The Vera Institute of Justice, bridging the gaps between theory, policy, and practice.

SAFE Spaces

The overarching aim of our new project, SAFE Spaces is to examine the setting-level characteristics and processes that occur in child welfare settings and explore their association with outcomes for youth. This is done through the creation and delivery of a new training intervention designed for front-line Staff working with children in Close to Home detention centers across New York City. As the first study of setting characteristics of child welfare settings, it provides an important contribution to both the research and the policy/practice communities.


Initiatives to End Girl's Incarceration

The goal of the Initiatives to End Girl's Incarceration is to build stronger, safer, and more equitable communities for girls of color and gender expansive children—communities in which girls and gender expansive youth are no longer criminalized for the violence and discrimination they face. Our research team partners with policy and youth leaders such as, The Vera Institute of Justice and Young Women's Freedom Center to ensure that the systematic reform efforts of EGI are evaluated using cutting edge applied translational research methods across and within national sites.


ROSES Advocacy Program

NYC Resilience, Opportunity, Safety, Education and Strength (ROSES) is an evidence-based, community-facing program pairing juvenile legal system involved girls and gender expansive youth with a highly trained advocate. Designed and implemented by the RISE Team, ROSES provides strengths-based advocacy directly to young people in service of their self-determined goals.

Interested in referring a young person to ROSES advocacy?


Understanding and Changing Social Inequity through Critical Consciousness

The RISE Team interrogates how critical consciousness develops, how psychologists can best measure it for different groups, and how it predicts a range of outcomes, including wellbeing, academic engagement, and intergroup relations. Critical consciousness, a pedagogical theory developed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire in the 1970s, suggests reflection on inequality, efficacy to change it, and action against inequality can empower individuals, communities, and systems to disrupt white supremacy.


Girls' Justice Initiatives (GJI)

Spearheaded by partnerships between the NYU RISE team, the Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, and New York State and Westchester County family court systems, the GJI implements and evaluates novel gender- and trauma- responsive practices, trainings, and collaborations to promote legal justice for girls and gender expansive youth. Through creating multidisciplinary councils and partnering with communities such as through, Black Sororities, the GJI works to identify and disrupt girls' pathways into the legal system.