How St. Louis County Is Putting Families at the Center of Youth Probation

For years, lead­ers in St. Louis Coun­ty, Mis­souri, knew they want­ed to strength­en part­ner­ships with young peo­ple and fam­i­lies in pro­ba­tion. They believed fam­i­lies should play a more active role in case plan­ning but lacked a clear roadmap for turn­ing that vision into every­day practice.

Fam­i­ly-Engaged Case Plan­ning train­ing, deliv­ered by Harley Con­sult­ing Group and a team of train­ers fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, pro­vid­ed that roadmap.

Since par­tic­i­pat­ing in the train­ing, the depart­ment has reex­am­ined its poli­cies, strength­ened staff and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships and shift­ed its approach from man­ag­ing com­pli­ance to build­ing rela­tion­ships. Along the way, it has learned lessons that may help oth­er juris­dic­tions put fam­i­lies at the cen­ter of case planning.

How Fam­i­ly-Engaged Case Plan­ning Changes Youth Probation

Fam­i­ly-engaged case plan­ning begins with a sim­ple premise: Young peo­ple and fam­i­lies should be active part­ners in deci­sions that affect their lives.

Court-ordered require­ments remain in place, but pro­ba­tion offi­cers begin by learn­ing what mat­ters most to young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies. Togeth­er, they iden­ti­fy the young per­son­’s strengths, estab­lish com­mon ground goals and devel­op a case plan that sup­ports both the court’s expec­ta­tions and the fam­i­ly’s pri­or­i­ties. The plan includes action steps that every­one — includ­ing pro­ba­tion offi­cers, fam­i­ly mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners — agrees to support.

For St. Louis Coun­ty, that required more than learn­ing a new prac­tice. It meant chang­ing how the depart­ment viewed its role.

“We want­ed to show up dif­fer­ent­ly for youth and fam­i­lies,” said Tymesha Buck­n­er-Dobynes, direc­tor of delin­quen­cy ser­vices for the St. Louis Coun­ty Fam­i­ly Court. ​“The invest­ment and com­mit­ment to this process are worth it. Fam­i­lies deserve to be val­ued and have a voice in their case plan and involve­ment in the system.”

How St. Louis Coun­ty Pre­pared for Fam­i­ly-Engaged Case Planning

Lead­ers quick­ly rec­og­nized that suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion would require changes through­out the orga­ni­za­tion, not just among front­line staff.

The depart­ment invest­ed in train­ing while cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for staff to ask ques­tions and share con­cerns through focus groups and depart­ment meet­ings. Lead­ers also invit­ed par­ents and care­givers to par­tic­i­pate in com­mu­ni­ty forums, where they shared their expe­ri­ences nav­i­gat­ing pro­ba­tion and iden­ti­fied oppor­tu­ni­ties for improvement.

Those con­ver­sa­tions led to mean­ing­ful changes.

St. Louis Coun­ty revised poli­cies and prac­tices to give pro­ba­tion offi­cers more time to build rela­tion­ships with fam­i­lies instead of rush­ing to com­plete refer­rals or meet admin­is­tra­tive dead­lines. The depart­ment also reduced case­load sizes, allow­ing staff to spend more time lis­ten­ing to young peo­ple and their caregivers.

The coun­ty lat­er hired two par­ent nav­i­ga­tors who have per­son­al expe­ri­ence sup­port­ing their own chil­dren through the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem. They help fam­i­lies under­stand the pro­ba­tion process, con­nect with resources and ensure fam­i­ly per­spec­tives shape case planning.

What Pro­ba­tion Staff Learned From Youth and Families

As imple­men­ta­tion pro­gressed, staff dis­cov­ered that many assump­tions about fam­i­lies need­ed to change.

Young peo­ple con­sis­tent­ly said they want­ed more voice, choice and con­trol over deci­sions affect­ing their lives. They also want­ed adults who would lis­ten, encour­age them and help cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for success.

Par­ents described their chil­dren’s pro­ba­tion as over­whelm­ing and some­times dif­fi­cult to under­stand. In response, the depart­ment stopped using unfa­mil­iar ter­mi­nol­o­gy and cre­at­ed more oppor­tu­ni­ties for fam­i­lies to ask ques­tions, share ideas and help shape case plans.

The goal shift­ed from man­ag­ing com­pli­ance to build­ing trust.

Deputy Juve­nile Offi­cer Mag­gie Pen­rose saw that shift first­hand while work­ing with Jay­den, a teen on Penrose’s case­load. Rather than begin­ning with court require­ments, Pen­rose worked with Jay­den and his fam­i­ly to iden­ti­fy com­mon-ground goals they could achieve togeth­er. They start­ed with reen­rolling him in school, rebuild­ing rou­tines at home and com­plet­ing house­hold respon­si­bil­i­ties. Those ear­ly suc­cess­es helped estab­lish trust and confidence.

Near­ly a year after his pro­ba­tion end­ed, his moth­er sent Pen­rose a pho­to of him grad­u­at­ing from high school.

“I can con­fi­dent­ly say that what I learned about fam­i­ly-engaged case plan­ning and goal set­ting played a key role in this suc­cess,” Pen­rose said. ​“This approach helped me find a bet­ter bal­ance between coach­ing and sup­port, rather than either of us expect­ing the oth­er to do the work.”

How Fam­i­ly-Engaged Case Plan­ning Is Chang­ing Pro­ba­tion in St. Louis County

While imple­men­ta­tion is ongo­ing, sev­er­al changes sug­gest the new approach is reshap­ing practice.

Pro­ba­tion offi­cers are spend­ing more time with fam­i­lies and mak­ing refer­rals lat­er in the case plan­ning process so they bet­ter reflect each fam­i­ly’s goals and circumstances.

Super­vi­sors have also changed how they coach staff. Rather than focus­ing pri­mar­i­ly on dead­lines, check­lists and com­pli­ance, super­vi­so­ry con­ver­sa­tions now empha­size rela­tion­ship build­ing, prob­lem solv­ing and fam­i­ly engagement.

The depart­ment replaced its for­mer ​“My Goals” work­sheet with a col­lab­o­ra­tive ​“Com­mon Ground Goals” process and con­tin­ues strength­en­ing part­ner­ships with com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions that ele­vate youth and fam­i­ly voice.

The depart­ment is also begin­ning to see encour­ag­ing ear­ly results. Between 2024 and 2025, pro­ba­tion vio­la­tions declined from 176 to 103, a 41% decrease. Dur­ing the same peri­od, deten­tion admis­sions fell 9%, includ­ing a 19% decrease in deten­tion admis­sions for tech­ni­cal pro­ba­tion violations.

Depart­ment lead­ers note that over­all delin­quen­cy refer­rals also declined dur­ing that peri­od, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to attribute these changes sole­ly to fam­i­ly-engaged case plan­ning. Still, they believe stronger part­ner­ships with youth and fam­i­lies are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence. With small­er case­loads, pro­ba­tion offi­cers have more time to build rela­tion­ships, improve com­mu­ni­ca­tion, help fam­i­lies bet­ter under­stand pro­ba­tion expec­ta­tions and inter­vene ear­ly when chal­lenges arise.

What St. Louis Coun­ty Rec­om­mends to Oth­er Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion Agencies

Buck­n­er-Dobynes encour­ages agen­cies con­sid­er­ing fam­i­ly-engaged case plan­ning to pre­pare for more than a new set of tools.

“In the­o­ry, fam­i­ly-engaged case plan­ning seems quite sim­ple,” she said. ​“While it is prac­ti­cal, it is dif­fer­ent from what juris­dic­tions have done in the past.”

She encour­ages lead­ers to think about imple­men­ta­tion as a par­al­lel process.

“Sim­i­lar to how you want staff to show up with youth, super­vi­sors and lead­ers need to show up with staff in the same con­struc­tive way.”

For juris­dic­tions just begin­ning the jour­ney, St. Louis Coun­ty recommends:

• explor­ing the avail­able online resources to under­stand the model;
• assess­ing orga­ni­za­tion­al readi­ness for change;
• secur­ing lead­er­ship com­mit­ment before imple­men­ta­tion begins;
• con­nect­ing with juris­dic­tions that have already imple­ment­ed fam­i­ly-engaged case plan­ning; and
• com­plet­ing the online pre­req­ui­site train­ing to build a strong foundation.

Imple­ment­ing fam­i­ly-engaged case plan­ning is not sim­ply about chang­ing forms or pro­ce­dures. It is about chang­ing relationships.

For St. Louis Coun­ty, that shift has meant cre­at­ing more oppor­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple and fam­i­lies to be heard, strength­en­ing part­ner­ships with the com­mu­ni­ty and build­ing a pro­ba­tion sys­tem that bet­ter reflects the voic­es of the peo­ple it serves. Ear­ly indi­ca­tors sug­gest the approach is also help­ing reduce tech­ni­cal vio­la­tions while giv­ing pro­ba­tion offi­cers more time to sup­port young peo­ple and fam­i­lies before prob­lems escalate.

Learn more about Fam­i­ly-Engaged Case Plan­ning in Youth Probation

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