Two Tools to Improve Family Engagement in Youth Probation

Strong fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships are crit­i­cal to youth suc­cess dur­ing and after pro­ba­tion. To help juve­nile jus­tice depart­ments strength­en this engage­ment with fam­i­lies, the Youth Jus­tice Lab at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty (ASU) — with sup­port from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion — has released the Fam­i­ly Engage­ment 360 Ini­tia­tive (FE-360). The ini­tia­tive includes two sur­vey tools that help juve­nile pro­ba­tion depart­ments under­stand and improve how they engage with families.

What Is FE-360?

The name ​“360” reflects the full view pro­ba­tion lead­ers gain from both staff and fam­i­ly per­spec­tives. With this prac­ti­cal, action­able feed­back, lead­ers can adjust train­ing, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures to bet­ter sup­port youth success.

The initiative’s two tools are:

1. a staff sur­vey that assess­es how pro­ba­tion offi­cers and super­vi­sors view fam­i­ly engage­ment — day-to-day strengths and oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth; and
2. youth and fam­i­ly sur­veys that pro­vide insight into the expe­ri­ences of youth and care­givers dur­ing and after probation.

“Mean­ing­ful, last­ing behav­ior change is dif­fi­cult to sus­tain beyond pro­ba­tion with­out the active involve­ment of par­ents and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, which makes part­ner­ing with fam­i­lies crit­i­cal,” said Dante Green with Casey’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group.

Tool 1: Pro­ba­tion Staff Survey

Most pro­ba­tion depart­ment juris­dic­tions don’t have a clear pic­ture of how staff view fam­i­ly engagement.

“The survey’s feed­back report offers agen­cies a clear, data-dri­ven foun­da­tion for shap­ing staff devel­op­ment and train­ing,” said Ter­es­sa Schu­mach­er of the Kansas Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions, which beta test­ed of the survey.

Request access to the pro­ba­tion staff survey

Staff respons­es are aggre­gat­ed and con­fi­den­tial. Agency lead­ers receive a report that rec­om­mends tools or resources based on depart­men­tal data.

Tool 2: Youth and Fam­i­ly Survey

Beyond com­pli­ance and recidi­vism, agen­cies rarely have feed­back on how pro­ba­tion affects youth well-being. These short sur­veys — one for youth, one for fam­i­lies — pro­vide that cru­cial insight.

The sur­veys are ide­al­ly admin­is­tered twice: halfway through the young person’s term on pro­ba­tion and again three months after the pro­ba­tion term ends. this knowl­edge gap. They cov­er hous­ing, phys­i­cal and men­tal health, hob­bies and more. The ques­tions take about 10 min­utes to answer. The Youth Jus­tice Lab admin­is­ters the sur­veys inde­pen­dent­ly and com­pen­sates par­tic­i­pants, cre­at­ing a safer space for hon­est feedback.

“This fos­ters a more hon­est and open dia­logue, free from con­cerns about poten­tial reper­cus­sions,” Schu­mach­er said.

Request access to ASU’s youth and fam­i­ly surveys

The results are deliv­ered via dash­board that helps lead­ers assess trends, track fam­i­lies’ expe­ri­ences and mea­sure the effec­tive­ness of initiatives.

“These sur­veys help juris­dic­tions move beyond assump­tions and use real feed­back from youth, par­ents and staff,” said Adam Fine, ASU pro­fes­sor and direc­tor of the Youth Jus­tice Lab. ​“They strength­en rela­tion­ships and ulti­mate­ly improve out­comes for young peo­ple on probation.”

Learn how to improve pro­ba­tion prac­tices and out­comes for young people

Down­load a prac­tice guide on fam­i­ly-engaged case planning