What Is the Juvenile Justice Applied Leadership Network?

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion is accept­ing appli­ca­tions — now through Sep­tem­ber 4, 2026 — for teams to join its Juve­nile Jus­tice Applied Lead­er­ship Net­work (ALN).

Lead­ers capa­ble of achiev­ing pow­er­ful, mea­sur­able and equi­table results are essen­tial to mak­ing a last­ing dif­fer­ence for young peo­ple who face steep bar­ri­ers to suc­cess. The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Applied Lead­er­ship Net­work (ALN) aims to devel­op this poten­tial in lead­ers and on behalf of youth — espe­cial­ly young Black and Lati­no men — who are involved or at risk of being involved with the legal sys­tem. The program’s sixth cycle kicks off in 2027.

The ALN expe­ri­ence is root­ed in Results Count^®, the Foundation’s approach to lead­er­ship devel­op­ment. ALN brings togeth­er juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem lead­ers, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, jus­tice-impact­ed indi­vid­u­als and oth­er part­ners to work toward a shared result: all young peo­ple involved in the jus­tice sys­tem are treat­ed equi­tably and thrive at home, in school and in their communities.

Learn­ing the Skills and Tools

Dur­ing the 12- to 18-month pro­gram, ALN par­tic­i­pants learn and apply the Results Count skills and tools with sup­port from fac­ul­ty and peers while bal­anc­ing the demands of their day-to-day roles. Togeth­er, the cohort strength­ens its abil­i­ty to use data to inform deci­sions, col­lab­o­rate across sec­tors, under­stand sys­tems, nav­i­gate com­plex­i­ty and lead mean­ing­ful change.

Each par­tic­i­pant iden­ti­fies a spe­cif­ic result they want to achieve with­in their orga­ni­za­tion or sys­tem and works with team­mates and part­ners to devel­op, imple­ment, refine and mea­sure strate­gies for achiev­ing it.

Through­out the pro­gram, the cohort con­venes for a series of mul­ti-day sem­i­nars. The sem­i­nars are spaced to give par­tic­i­pants time to apply what they have learned in their dai­ly work between sessions.

“The heart of the cur­ricu­lum lies in pro­vid­ing par­tic­i­pants with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to apply the lessons here and now.” explains Bar­bara Squires, direc­tor of lead­er­ship devel­op­ment at the Foun­da­tion. ​“We want to achieve tan­gi­ble results.”

ALN Alum­ni in Action

Since 2008, the pro­gram has pro­duced five class­es of ALN lead­ers span­ning 76 alum­ni across 24 states and Puer­to Rico. As ALN alum­ni, par­tic­i­pants con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from peer sup­port as they apply a results-dri­ven frame­work with­in their home organizations.

“ALN lead­ers are uti­liz­ing skills gained from the Results Count expe­ri­ence to intro­duce and accel­er­ate inno­v­a­tive juve­nile jus­tice poli­cies and prac­tices that pro­mote pos­si­bil­i­ty and poten­tial of youth caught in the sys­tem,” says Gail D. Mum­ford, senior asso­ciate with the Foundation.

Using Results Count to Advance and Accel­er­ate Results

New York, Cal­i­for­nia and Louisiana are three areas where ALN alum­ni are mak­ing an impact and shap­ing efforts to pre­vent youth from enter­ing the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem. These exam­ples, explored in greater detail, appear below.

• San­ta Cruz Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia — Two ALN alum­ni (Fer­nan­do Giral­do, chief pro­ba­tion offi­cer, and Valerie Thomp­son, assis­tant chief pro­ba­tion offi­cer) prac­tice results-dri­ven lead­er­ship in their home pro­ba­tion agency. The coun­ty admin­is­tra­tor took notice and enlist­ed the pair’s help to intro­duce Results Count at the coun­ty lev­el. Accel­er­at­ing the well-being of the county’s res­i­dents — par­tic­u­lar­ly groups who face the great­est bar­ri­ers to suc­cess, which includes young peo­ple at risk of juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem involve­ment — requires close col­lab­o­ra­tion among the County’s agen­cies and com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions. ​“Work­ing togeth­er in align­ment toward the same goal and rec­og­niz­ing every­one has a con­tri­bu­tion to make is crit­i­cal for us to be suc­cess­ful,” Giral­do says.
• Cal­casieu Parish, Louisiana — Two ALN alum­ni serv­ing in the Office of Juve­nile Ser­vices (Antho­ny Celes­tine, direc­tor, and Joshua Camp­bell, assis­tant direc­tor) run a Mul­ti-Agency Resource Cen­ter. This cen­ter co-locates com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices and sup­port so that young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies can quick­ly secure assis­tance in avoid­ing for­mal involve­ment in the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem. ​“Josh and I have used our ALN expe­ri­ence to focus on the fact that youth and fam­i­lies need to thrive in their home, school and com­mu­ni­ty and want­ed to pro­vide these ser­vices with­out need­ing for­mal entry into our juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem to obtain them,” Celes­tine explains. ​“Lead­er­ship requires vision and the tools to get things done for youth and fam­i­lies, and we are doing it.”
• In New York state — Two ALN alum­ni (John John­son and Jim Czar­ni­ak) have imple­ment­ed a statewide fund­ing pro­gram that allows local juris­dic­tions to boost their invest-ment in com­mu­ni­ty-based alter­na­tives to deten­tion and court-ordered out-of-home place­ments. In Ononda­ga Coun­ty, the Super­vi­sion Treat­ment Ser­vices for Juve­niles Pro­gram shift­ed more than $500,000 from deten­tion into com­mu­ni­ty-led pro­grams and ser­vices and youth well-being. ​“The lead­er­ship skills we learned in ALN pro­vid­ed real tools that sup­port­ed align­ment of our com­mu­ni­ty and sys­tem part­ners,” says Jim Czar­ni­ak, for­mer deputy com­mis­sion­er of the Ononda­ga Depart­ment of Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices. Such align­ment, Czar­ni­ak notes, was essen­tial to the program’s success.

These exam­ples are only part of ALN’s sto­ry. ​“We are see­ing incred­i­ble work being done across the coun­try by ALN alum­ni,” says Casey’s Mum­ford, ​“includ­ing work specif­i­cal­ly focused on racial and eth­nic equi­ty and on com­mu­ni­ty and youth engagement.