According to the Citizens’ Commission for Children of New York, youth arrest rates in New York state have dropped steadily from 2012 to 2022, with some of that drop due to the Raise The Age law passed in 2017 that lifted the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18. Despite that, every year countless individuals under age 18 in the city and state interacted in some way with the justice system in 2024, whether that was being arrested, charged with or found guilty of some level of crime. And those interactions often pull young people off an education track for good, which in turn pulls them off the track to getting a decent job and having a sense of purpose.
That’s where Exalt Youth comes in. Founded in 2006, the nonprofit has a Financial District headquarters, a staff of 47 and an operating budget of $12 million from private donors including the Gates and Robin Hood foundations. It says that it worked with 1,000 young people this year alone, not only intervening on their behalf before judges and their school teachers and administrators but putting them in an intensive after-school goal- and skills-building program and then placing them in internships related to their goals, paying them $18-an-hour. Even after young people complete the initial 5-month program, they can stay in the program another two years as it helps shepherd them into further internships and/or college or post-high school training and certification in different fields. The program even takes its young charges on college tours.
Recently, Exalt announced that it would expand its services to the Syracuse area, and that it would like to start a national training center for its model to be replicated in locales nationwide. City & State spoke with Gisele Castro, one of Exalt’s cofounders and its CEO since 2016, about what it’s like running the ambitious program, the personal story that set her on her career path and what she hopes to achieve with Exalt in the years ahead…