innovation brief

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Innovation Brief: Using Community Truancy Boards to Tackle Truancy: Dec 12, 2013, Bonnie Bush, Juvenile Court Administrator, Spokane County Juvenile Court; In 2007, after a coalition of community stakeholders expressed concern with the high dropout rates and high occurrence of truancy in their Eastern Washington community, the Spokane County Juvenile…
Innovation Brief: Avoiding and Mitigating the Collateral Consequences of a Juvenile Adjudication: Dec 12, 2013, National Juvenile Defender Center; The majority of youth who come into contact with the juvenile court system have one court contact and never return. And even among those youth who do return to juvenile court, most do not become…
Innovation Brief: Early Appointment of Counsel: Dec 12, 2013, National Juvenile Defender Center; The timing of the appointment of counsel can have as much of an impact on the outcome of a case as whether an attorney is appointed at all. Having a qualified juvenile defender present, at the…
Innovation Brief: The Cultural Enhancement Model for Evidence-Based Practice: Dec 12, 2013, Sarah Walker, Research Assistant Professor, University of Washington Division of Public Behavioral Health & Justice Policy; Interest in developing and testing cultural adaptations has grown in proportion to the widespread adoption of policies to support the implementation of evidence-based practice (EBPs). One significant…
Innovation Brief: Facilitating Health Care Coverage for Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth: Dec 12, 2013, Sarabeth Zemel, Kimm Mooney, Diane Justice, National Academy for State Health Policy; As states and juvenile justice stakeholders work to facilitate health coverage and access for system-involved youth, they can draw upon the experiences of their counterparts across the country to…
Innovation Brief: Illinois’ JWatch Probation Data & Case Management System: Dec 12, 2013, Lisa Jacobs and Susan Witkin, Loyola University Chicago School of Law; Illinois’ 64 probation departments use a wide variety of commercial and “homegrown” data systems to gather and manage information on youth on juvenile probation caseloads and to…
Innovation Brief: Ogle County’s Juvenile Justice Council: Dec 12, 2013, Lisa Jacobs and Jim Bray, Illinois Models for Change; Ogle County in northwestern Illinois looks like many rural communities, with a relatively small population (53,497) spread across a large geographic area (758 square miles). But Ogle County has…
Innovation Brief: Judicial Colloquies: Communicating with Kids in Court: Dec 12, 2013, Rosa Peralta and George Yeannakis; Juvenile offenders are customarily required to comply with a lengthy list of rules imposed by a judge or juvenile probation counselor. Failures to comply, even those of a technical nature that result…
Innovation Brief: Professional Development for Key Decision Makers in Juvenile Court: Strengthening the Juvenile-Specific Knowledge and Capabilities of Prosecutors, Defenders, and Judges: Dec 12, 2013, Barry Mahoney – The Justice Management Institute & Stephen Phillippi, PhD-Louisiana State University School of Public Health: Institute for Public Health & Justice; When Louisiana began to address long-standing problems in its juvenile justice system, leaders of the reform movement recognized that engaging key juvenile court decision makers—prosecutors,…
Innovation Brief: Local Detention Reform Leading to State Adoption of Best Practice Detention Standards: Dec 12, 2013, Dana Kaplan, Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana & Stephen Phillippi, PhD, Louisiana State University School of Public Health: Institute for Public Health & Justice; Statewide standards for juvenile detention facilities were produced through a collaborative effort utilizing and accelerating local reforms from Models for Change sites in Louisiana. These standards…
Innovation Brief: Model for Effective Implementation of Evidence-Based Practices: Dec 12, 2013, Stephen Phillippi, PhD & Debra DePrato, MD, LSU School of Public Health, Institute for Public Health and Justice; In current literature, there is a general agreement concerning what works and what does not work in reducing delinquent behavior with juvenile offenders in communities; however, this knowledge has…
Innovation Brief: University Partnerships as a Strategy for Promoting Data-Driven Decision Making in Juvenile Justice: Dec 12, 2013, Kristina Childs, PhD,Consultant for the Institute for Public Health and Justice & Paul Frick, PhD, University of New Orleans; A critical piece of juvenile justice reform is the use of data to objectively identify areas in need of reform, select the types of reforms that match a jurisdiction’s needs, and to evaluate…
Innovation Brief: Model Juvenile Court Colloquies: Dec 12, 2013, National Juvenile Defender Center; Despite the rehabilitative nature we ascribe to the juvenile justice system, research indicates that when young people are in court, surrounded by authority figures, they are often frightened or…
Innovation Brief: Addressing the Legal Needs of Youth After Disposition: Dec 12, 2013, National Juvenile Defender Center; In most instances, legal representation for a youth ends at disposition, leaving youth on their own to navigate continuing legal obligations while on probation and even while incarcerated. This often…
Innovation Brief: Eliminating the Practice of Indiscriminate Shackling of Youth: Dec 12, 2013, National Juvenile Defender Center; Many youth in custody are forced to appear in court shackled with leg irons, belly chains, and handcuffs. The practice of restraining youth who pose no safety threat unnecessarily humiliates,…
Innovation Brief: Beyond Anecdote: New Resources in Washington State for Data-Informed Policy Reform: Dec 12, 2013, WSCCR and NCJJ; A growing demand exists in juvenile justice for quality information to support a range of policy planning, program research and evaluation efforts. Challenged with system reform, the states require…
Innovation Brief: Schools Turn to Treatment, Not Punishment, for Children with Mental Health Needs: Dec 12, 2013, Giudi Weiss, Kathleen Skowyra; In 2008, the new Mental Health/Juvenile Justice Action Network selected “early diversion” as its first area of focus. Its goal was to create opportunities for youth with mental health…
Innovation Brief: Reforming Automatic Transfer Laws: A Success Story: Nov 30, 2012, Jason Szanyi, Center for Children’s Law and Policy; In the mid-1980s, the Illinois Legislature took a tough stance on drug use among youth. As part of a national trend toward harsher punishments for juveniles, lawmakers decided to prosecute in adult…
Innovation Brief: Partnering with Schools to Reduce Juvenile Justice Referrals: Nov 30, 2012, Jason Szanyi, Center for Children’s Law and Policy; In Peoria, Illinois, a large number of African-American youth were entering detention for aggravated battery in one public high school. After learning more about the problem, local juvenile justice…
Innovation Brief: Juvenile Justice and Mental Health: A Collaborative Approach: Nov 30, 2012, Barbara Chayt, Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators; No single agency can solve the mental health/juvenile justice crisis. It demands a collaborative model. Three Pennsylvania counties—Allegheny, Chester, and Erie—and a state-level team…
Innovation Brief: Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Pennsylvania: Nov 30, 2012, Dana Shoenberg, Center for Children’s Law and Policy; Across the United States, youth of color are disproportionately represented at every stage of the juvenile justice system, with the greatest disparities at the deepest end of the system. Although…
Innovation Brief: Strengthening the Role of Families in Juvenile Justice: Nov 30, 2012, Wendy Luckenbill, Community Care Behavioral Health; In 2007, Models for Change-Pennsylvania established a multidisciplinary workgroup—including both family advocates and juvenile justice practitioners—to address the role of families in the…
Innovation Brief: Media Relations: Transforming a Crisis into an Opportunity for Reform: Nov 30, 2012, Marie Yeager, Roda Creative Services.; The Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, “kids-for-cash” tragedy provided many opportunities for education regarding juvenile justice in the United States. The publicity, shaped by thoughtful…
Innovation Brief: Learn to Earn: PACTT Helps Delinquent Youths Gain Academic and Job Skills: Nov 30, 2012, Candace Putter, PACTT; In a time of high unemployment, the lack of attention to education and career training for delinquent youths has aggravated the considerable barriers to employment they face upon release from…
Innovation Brief: Mental Health Needs and Due Process Rights: Finding the Balance: Nov 30, 2012, Autumn Dickman, Juvenile Law Center; Models for Change sites have launched a variety of initiatives to identify and treat justice involved youths with mental health and substance abuse problems. They include screening and assessment…
Innovation Brief: Using Risk Assessment to Meet Needs and Reduce Recidivism: Nov 30, 2012, Gina M. Vincent, PhD, National Youth Screening & Assessment Project and Laura S. Guy, PhD, University of Massachusetts Medical School; A growing number of juvenile justice experts are suggesting that an effective approach to reducing recidivism is to evaluate a youth’s risk of reoffending, then match services to his or her…
Innovation Brief: Using Diversion Fairly, Consistently, and Effectively: Dec 1, 2011, Juvenile Law Center; Juvenile justice leaders in Pennsylvania wanted to create a model system to channel youths away from formal processing. The idea was to hold young offenders accountable withless costly and more…
Innovation Brief: Raising the Standards of Juvenile Indigent Defense: Dec 1, 2011, Juvenile Law Center; Pennsylvania’s county-based approach to juvenile defense created a patchwork system in which children in some counties received excellent representation while those in other locations did not,…

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