Five Sites Selected for Juvenile Probation Certificate Program

In June 2024, teams from five juris­dic­tions will gath­er in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to learn about adopt­ing a safer, youth-cen­tered approach to juve­nile pro­ba­tion as part of the Trans­form­ing Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion Cer­tifi­cate Pro­gram.

Sup­port­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the pro­gram offers inten­sive instruc­tion, dis­cus­sion and plan­ning sup­port to select­ed juris­dic­tions that are ready to ques­tion the pur­pose and goals of pro­ba­tion. It was devel­oped in part­ner­ship with the Cen­ter for Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform (CJJR) at George­town University’s McCourt School of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and the Coun­cil of State Gov­ern­ments Jus­tice Cen­ter.

The 2024 pro­gram is the third time it has been offered and includes juve­nile jus­tice juris­dic­tions in:

• Greene Coun­ty, Ohio;
• The state of Maine;
• Orange Coun­ty, California;
• River­side Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia; and
• Wayne Coun­ty (Detroit), Michigan.

“This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for juris­dic­tions to ful­ly shift the role of pro­ba­tion away from sur­veil­lance and com­pli­ance and toward pro­mot­ing per­son­al growth, pos­i­tive behav­ior change and long-term suc­cess for youth,” says Stephen Bish­op, asso­ciate direc­tor of pro­ba­tion and sys­tem trans­for­ma­tion in the Foundation’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group.

Each team, capped at eleven mem­bers, has a chief pro­ba­tion offi­cer, judge and pros­e­cu­tor on its roster.

Over the course of the pro­gram, each team will receive tech­ni­cal assis­tance as they devel­op a cap­stone project that iden­ti­fies a clear action for trans­form­ing juve­nile pro­ba­tion in their juris­dic­tion. This may include:

• devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing new poli­cies and practices;
• train­ing staff and stake­hold­ers to pro­mote buy-in and col­lab­o­ra­tion; and
• assess­ing, eval­u­at­ing and sus­tain­ing progress.

Upon approval of a team’s cap­stone project, its mem­bers will earn an exec­u­tive cer­tifi­cate from George­town Uni­ver­si­ty and join CJJR’s net­work of more than 1,900 fel­lows. The uni­ver­si­ty will also pro­vide teams with exten­sive tech­ni­cal assis­tance to sup­port plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion at home.

The cur­ricu­lum is root­ed in the prin­ci­ples and prac­tices described in Casey’s Trans­form­ing Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion and Trans­form­ing Juve­nile Jus­tice Sys­tems to Improve Pub­lic Safe­ty and Youth Out­comes from the CJJR and Coun­cil of State Gov­ern­ments Jus­tice Cen­ter. It cov­ers top­ics such as:

• incor­po­rat­ing prac­tices for fair­ness and equity;
• youth, fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ship and empowerment;
• diver­sion as an off-ramp from the for­mal jus­tice system;
• deci­sion mak­ing about the length and inten­si­ty of pro­ba­tion terms;
• roles of pro­ba­tion offi­cers; and
• lead­ing trans­for­ma­tion­al change.

What Do Past Par­tic­i­pants Say?

Rosie Med­i­na, a chief pro­ba­tion offi­cer who led a team from El Paso Coun­ty, Texas, not­ed the ​“unequiv­o­cal val­ue” of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2022 cer­tifi­cate pro­gram. Med­i­na cit­ed the tech­ni­cal assis­tance and train­ing as crit­i­cal to the ​“imple­men­ta­tion of strate­gies that will be sus­tain­able and will yield improved pos­i­tive out­comes for youth involved in our sys­tem as we look into the future.”

Hen­ry Gon­za­les, Medina’s coun­ter­part in Har­ris Coun­ty, Texas, appre­ci­at­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from the expe­ri­ences and insights of oth­ers in the field. ​“Active engage­ment in the pro­gram cre­ates space for con­ver­sa­tion that pro­motes curios­i­ty about doing things dif­fer­ent­ly,” he said.