Casey Selects 11 Jurisdictions to Train Frontline Juvenile Justice Staff - The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Casey Selects 11 Jurisdictions to Train Frontline Juvenile Justice Staff

Posted September 13, 2022
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Two Black men sit in front of a laptop. One points at the screen, discussing strategy and sharing ideas.

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and School & Main Insti­tute have select­ed 11 juris­dic­tions to con­duct pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment based on the Reimag­in­ing Juve­nile Jus­tice (RJJ) cur­ricu­lum. The train­ing is root­ed in ado­les­cent devel­op­ment research, which indi­cates that young peo­ple respond well to a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment and sup­port­ive, car­ing adults. The pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment series encour­ages par­tic­i­pants to shift their mind­sets by think­ing out­side of their tra­di­tion­al roles to devel­op reforms that engage young peo­ple and fam­i­lies. RJJ aims to help front­line staff bet­ter sup­port, divert and redi­rect youth to appro­pri­ate and fair jus­tice options.

Who Are the RJJ Par­tic­i­pat­ing Organizations?

Through a com­pet­i­tive process, the Foun­da­tion and School & Main chose par­tic­i­pants from 11 local­i­ties. The par­tic­i­pants are:

  • Ari­zona: Mari­co­pa Coun­ty Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion Depart­ment and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner Fam­i­ly Involve­ment Center.
  • Geor­gia: Chatham Coun­ty Juve­nile Court and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner DEEP Center.
  • Geor­gia: Ful­ton Coun­ty Juve­nile Court and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner youthSpark.
  • Illi­nois: Cook Coun­ty Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion Depart­ment and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner GRO Community.
  • Mis­souri: Greene Coun­ty Juve­nile Office, the 31st Judi­cial Cir­cuit Juve­nile and Fam­i­ly Court and the Mis­souri Divi­sion of Youth Services.
  • Mis­souri: Jasper Coun­ty Juve­nile Court and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner The Alliance of South­west Missouri.
  • Neva­da: Lyon Coun­ty Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner Healthy Com­mu­ni­ties Coalition.
  • New Jer­sey: Cum­ber­land Coun­ty Prosecutor’s Office and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner Life Worth Liv­ing, Inc.
  • Ohio: Franklin Coun­ty Juve­nile Court, Juve­nile Com­mu­ni­ty Enrich­ment Ser­vices, Youth Edu­ca­tion and Inter­ven­tion Ser­vices and the Franklin Coun­ty Office of Jus­tice Pol­i­cy and Programs.
  • Texas: Har­ris Coun­ty Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion Depart­ment and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner Change Happens!. 
  • Vir­ginia: Danville Police Depart­ment (22nd Judi­cial Dis­trict of Vir­ginia) and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner KaZelle & Company.

Train­ing for the train­ers cul­mi­nates with an in-per­son insti­tute in Den­ver in Octo­ber 2022. Then, the train­ers will deliv­er the RJJ cur­ricu­lum to col­leagues in their home com­mu­ni­ties between Novem­ber 2022 and April 2023. Depend­ing on local cir­cum­stances, the train­ing will be deliv­ered vir­tu­al­ly, in per­son or through a hybrid of vir­tu­al and in-per­son instruction.

What Came Before the 2022 RJJ Train-the-Train­er Institute

The RJJ approach has devel­oped over stages. Since 2016, 94 train­ers in juris­dic­tions across the coun­try have deliv­ered the course to more than 800 pro­fes­sion­als in their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties. The pro­fes­sion­als rep­re­sent an array of agen­cies and orga­ni­za­tions, including:

  • gov­ern­ment and non­prof­it agencies;
  • courts;
  • pub­lic education;
  • local law enforcement;
  • com­mu­ni­ty and faith-based orga­ni­za­tions; and
  • youth with jus­tice sys­tem involve­ment and their fam­i­ly members.

A Clos­er Look at the RJJ Curriculum

The RJJ train­ing cur­ricu­lum aims to:

  • equip youth for long-term suc­cess by pro­vid­ing alter­na­tives to jus­tice sys­tem involve­ment and incarceration;
  • instill approach­es that help young peo­ple reach their poten­tial by iden­ti­fy­ing and build­ing on their strengths and inter­ests; and
  • encour­age pub­lic sys­tems and com­mu­ni­ty-based part­ners to col­lab­o­rate more fre­quent­ly and creatively.

The cur­ricu­lum encour­ages mem­bers of youth-serv­ing agen­cies — includ­ing juve­nile jus­tice pro­fes­sion­als — to look beyond a young person’s needs and prob­lems and focus instead on a young person’s assets. Pro­fes­sion­als will also learn how to nav­i­gate and col­lab­o­rate with oth­er pub­lic sys­tems and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners to ful­ly access resources for young peo­ple as well as advance racial and eth­nic equity.

Juris­dic­tions have cred­it­ed the RJJ cur­ricu­lum with mak­ing their staff and part­ners more recep­tive to con­nect­ing young peo­ple with pos­i­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties,” says David E. Brown, a senior asso­ciate at the Foundation.

What Dif­fer­ence Is RJJ Making?

RJJ has prompt­ed key prac­tice changes in the 18 states and more than 35 juris­dic­tions imple­ment­ing the approach. RJJ’s work in Ohio, for instance, is encour­ag­ing lis­ten­ing to and learn­ing from youth who have expe­ri­ence in the jus­tice sys­tem. In Pima Coun­ty, Ari­zona, RJJ train­ing encour­ages par­tic­i­pants to chal­lenge assump­tions and share valu­able infor­ma­tion across agen­cies. In Racine Coun­ty, Wis­con­sin, pro­ba­tion offi­cers are using youth assess­ments to build fuller pic­tures of the lives of indi­vid­ual young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies, rather than using assess­ments only to diag­nose what is wrong and try to fix deficits with a patch­work of services.

Maryland’s Depart­ment of Juve­nile Ser­vices is expand­ing on the RJJ mod­ules on racial equi­ty and fam­i­ly engage­ment in the train­ing it deliv­ers statewide. Arkansas is fol­low­ing a sim­i­lar approach, using RJJ mod­ules as the core of statewide train­ing. A pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment mind­set with stronger cross-sys­tem col­lab­o­ra­tion is vital to the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem because the youth who find them­selves with­in the sys­tem often face chal­lenges that can­not be resolved puni­tive­ly,” says Faye Shep­herd, a juve­nile jus­tice spe­cial­ist with the Arkansas Admin­is­tra­tive Office of the Courts.

Will the RJJ Cur­ricu­lum Be Avail­able Broadly?

School & Main will release the fol­low­ing RJJ cur­ricu­lum mod­ules in an e‑learning train­ing for­mat in fall 2022:

  • Pos­i­tive Youth Devel­op­ment Fundamentals.
  • Using a Cross-Sys­tems Approach.
  • Address­ing Race and Eth­nic Equi­ty and Inclu­sion Issues in Pol­i­cy and Practice.
  • Engag­ing Youth Voice and Empow­er­ing Youth Leadership.
  • Fos­ter­ing Pos­i­tive Fam­i­ly Rela­tion­ships in the Juve­nile Jus­tice System.
  • Trans­form­ing Pol­i­cy and Prac­tice: Pre­sen­ta­tions and Recommendations.

RJJ moves sys­tems and com­mu­ni­ties to incor­po­rate changes to juve­nile jus­tice pol­i­cy and prac­tice that reflect what we know about pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment to improve out­comes for youth,” Brown says.