Casey Launches Virtual Destination for Juvenile Justice Reformers

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion launched JDAIcon­nect this month as a vir­tu­al des­ti­na­tion for juve­nile jus­tice reform­ers to talk, find resources and learn. The plat­form is avail­able to every­one — prac­ti­tion­ers, pol­i­cy mak­ers, com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions, advo­cates, youth, fam­i­lies, researchers and oth­ers — who are inter­est­ed in youth jus­tice. Mem­ber­ship is open to all, whether or not you par­tic­i­pate in the Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive®, and free of charge.

Nate Balis, the direc­tor of the Foundation’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group, announced JDAIcon­nect dur­ing his State of the Ini­tia­tive address at the 2017 JDAI Inter-Site Con­fer­ence in Orlan­do, which com­mem­o­rat­ed the 25^th anniver­sary of JDAI™. He described JDAIcon­nect as part of the strate­gic vision for the next 25 years of JDAI.

“The vital­i­ty of the JDAI net­work and the field as a whole comes from indi­vid­u­als, coun­ties and states chal­leng­ing one anoth­er to get bet­ter results and push the reform enve­lope, while build­ing an infra­struc­ture to sus­tain results,” says Balis. ​“JDAIcon­nect ramps that up by mul­ti­ply­ing inter­ac­tions among reform­ers and allow­ing each of us to tap the network’s col­lec­tive wisdom.”

“JDAIcon­nect is a place where every­one work­ing to improve juve­nile jus­tice across the coun­try can get resources, share ideas, make friends, get fired up, cel­e­brate suc­cess­es and per­haps hatch the next great juve­nile jus­tice rev­o­lu­tion,” said Meghan Gue­vara, the direc­tor of learn­ing at the Pre­tri­al Jus­tice Insti­tute. The Casey Foun­da­tion part­nered with the Pre­tri­al Jus­tice Insti­tute to devel­op and man­age JDAIconnect.

JDAIcon­nect users can:

• Reach out to a net­work of juve­nile jus­tice reform­ers for advice, cama­raderie, peer sup­port or inspiration
• Find reports, arti­cles, pre­sen­ta­tions and oth­er doc­u­ments on juve­nile deten­tion reform or youth jus­tice more broadly
• Access train­ing on demand on sub­jects such as elim­i­nat­ing sys­temic racial and eth­nic dis­par­i­ties in juve­nile jus­tice systems

Gue­vara told an audi­ence of youth jus­tice pro­fes­sion­als: ​“It’s your space, and we hope that it ener­gizes and inspires you to move for­ward with the amaz­ing work that you do.”

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