Kyla Woods
Kyla Woods is a youth justice policy advisor, advocate, and organizer based in Washington, DC. With over seven years of experience leading and managing policy and human service initiatives, she has developed legislation and programming to prevent and respond to commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), mental health access, juvenile justice, and housing justice disparities.
Kyla graduated magna cum laude from the University of the District of Columbia and received the Myrtilla Miner’s Humanitarian and Civic Engagement Award in 2020. Since graduating, she has remained committed to demanding equity for those systematically disenfranchised. Throughout her career, she has leveraged collaboration between individuals with lived and learned expertise to demand that power shifts from systems to communities.
For the past seven years, Kyla has partnered with youth-serving agencies and organizations to ensure the integration of youth expertise in efforts to improve policy and program implementation. In 2019, she began a two-year fellowship, designed to enhance housing support services for 18 to 25-year-olds in the District of Columbia. Kyla also led youth participatory action research (YPAR) initiatives locally and found that integrating support such as youth shelter, mental health, and employment support could prevent long-term housing insecurity and legal system involvement.
To reduce the logistical and intrapersonal barriers that young people face in securing social services, Kyla developed three toolkits. The first, “Paternalism to Partnership,” is a guide for non-profit organizations seeking to integrate “youth voice” and identify best practices and opportunities for growth. The second, “Project Parachute,” was developed as a road map to policy reform and greater coordination between the University of the District of Columbia and the DC Department of Human Services to address housing insecurity on campus.
Kyla’s most recent publication, Beyond the Box: Tools to Uplift Emerging Leaders followed the grasstop organizing journey of fellow members of the Youth Leaders in Action (YLA) Committee of Washington, DC Juvenile Justice Advisory Group. Beyond the Box is a powerful resource to guide State Advisory Groups to further discussions or efforts to enhance youth collaboration and engagement. Kyla most recently served as the DC Regional Director at the Restoring Ivy Collective, a survivor-led non-profit organization focused on building intentional healing communities among sex trafficking survivors. She also coordinated, staffed, and supervised our non-punitive mentoring program for youth in HOPE Court (diversion court for exploited youths).
Kyla’s tenure in cross-sector coordination has strengthened her ability to integrate the perspectives of young leaders and individuals with learned experience. As a National Urban Fellow, she desires to continue working towards one overarching mission: to expand support networks through intentional partnerships to build power within communities.