Making Justice builds on the knowledge and energy of many people and organizations, and continues to change as new partners join the effort in different roles and capacities. The current program solidly stands upon the foundation built by many partnerships, a series of pilot programs and financial support from outside of the library. The program was first conceived to address the nation's widest black/white educational opportunity gap and highest per capita black juvenile arrest and incarceration rate [Wisconsin Council on Children & Families, Race to Equity (2013)].

uCreate [2010]

Madison Public Library began developing workshops for youth in the justice system with the uCreate project at Dane County Jail. uCreate was organized by Global Kids (NY) as their first Edge Project and was run in collaboration with Madison Metropolitan School District, Dane County Library Service, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (NC) and Mecklenburg County Jail (NC). Edge Projects are interested in helping civic and cultural institutions to bring cutting edge digital media into their youth educational programs, and the uCreate pilot project linked jails with community libraries in two cities, to work specifically with incarcerated youth and new learning technologies. 

ArtSpeak [2012]

Community Partnerships Inc.'s ArtSpeak Director, Kay DeWaide, collaborated with UW-Madison faculty member Nancy Buenger to develop an expressive art program for court-involved Dane County teens, which incorporated UW student peer learners enrolled in the course Looking Beyond the Law's Letter.

Animation [2012]

Madison Public Library received a grant from the local Irwin A. & Robert D. Goodman Foundation to develop a portable stop-motion animation program for teens based out of the Goodman South Madison Library. The grant allowed the library to purchase equipment, contract with an animation instructor and build the program with teen input.  The library was able to reach target populations by working with key community outreach partners already serving court-involved teens that included Dane County Juvenile Detention Center, Dane County Juvenile Shelter Home, Community Partnerships Inc., and Centro Hispano. It was during this time that library staff began working with community partners to build and share the Bubber concept.

Making Justice [2013]

Madison Public Library and ArtSpeak staff began participating in each other's workshops, sharing practices, sharing community partners, and generating ideas. In 2014, Making Justice was launched with the generous support of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment and Morgridge Center for Public Service, along with a National Leadership Grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. A broad spectrum of campus and community partners joined the initiative, including UW Madison students opting to take our community-based learning course. Learn more about the making of this operation from this BEHIND THE SCENES deep dive!