Speaker Biography: J. Robert Flores

Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Department of Justice
Vice Chair, Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

A longtime advocate for children, J. Robert Flores has led a distinguished career in juvenile and criminal justice. Prior to assuming his current position in 2002, he served in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues related to child exploitation and obscenity.

Mr. Flores is an experienced lawyer and former prosecutor with expertise in Internet crime, child abuse and exploitation, and juvenile justice issues. In his role as OJJDP Administrator, he has spearheaded efforts to increase and improve Federal interagency cooperation. In keeping with the President’s management initiatives to make the Federal government more efficient, Mr. Flores has initiated three pilot programs to address youth gangs, reduce child prostitution, and improve the juvenile justice system. Under his leadership, OJJDP has expanded its efforts to respond to the online exploitation of children and significantly increased the involvement of faith-based and community organizations in its programming.

Mr. Flores regularly lectures at conferences and seminars throughout the United States on child abuse and exploitation, criminal procedure, criminal and constitutional law, and investigative procedures and computer crime. He has also served as a consultant to federal and state legislators and government officials.

The Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a multi-agency body created to coordinate federal juvenile delinquency prevention programs and activities that detail or care for unaccompanied juveniles and federal programs relating to missing and exploited children. The council’s responsibilities include coordinating programs among federal, state, and local governments to better serve at-risk youth. In 2005, the council is focusing on implementing the recommendations of the White House Task Force on Disadvantaged Youth.

Speaker Biography: Karen Pittman

Executive Director, the Forum for Youth Investment
President, Impact Strategies, Inc.

A sociologist and recognized leader in youth development, Karen Pittman started her career at the Urban Institute, conducting numerous studies on social services for children and families. Later, she worked six years at the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), launching its adolescent pregnancy prevention initiatives and helping to create its adolescent policy agenda. In 1990, she left CDF to become a Vice President at the Academy for Educational Development where she founded and directed the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research and its spin-off, the National Training Institute for Community Youth Work.

In January 1995, Pittman became Director of the President's Crime Prevention Council, where she worked with 13 cabinet secretaries to create a coordinated prevention agenda. In the fall of 1995, she joined the executive team of the International Youth Foundation, charged with helping the organization strengthen its program content and develop an evaluation strategy. In 1998, she and Rick Little, head of IYF, took a six-month leave of absence to work with General Powell to create America’s Promise. In 1999, she returned to IYF to lay the seeds for what has become the Forum.

Pittman has written three books and dozens of articles on youth issues and is a regular columnist (Youth Today) and public speaker. She has served on numerous boards, including, currently, High/Scope Educational Research Foundation and the National Center for Children in Poverty. She has also served on the boards of the Educational Testing Service, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the National Commission on the Senior Year of High School. She is the 2002 recipient of the National Commission for African American Education Augustus F. Hawkins Service Award and the 2003 American Youth Policy Forum Decade of Service Award for Sustained Visionary Leadership in Advancing Youth Policy.

The Forum for Youth Investment is the core operating division of Impact Strategies, Inc. It is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping communities and the nation make sure all young people are Ready by 21: Ready for College, work, and life. This goal requires that young people have the supports, opportunities, and services needed to prosper and contribute where they live, learn, work, play and make a difference. The Forum provides youth and adult leaders with the information, technical assistance, training, network support and partnership opportunities needed to increase the quality and quantity of youth investment and youth involvement.