Description
OJJDP is hosting a series of listening sessions and town halls with stakeholders, national partners, and youth in summer 2022. The sessions provide OJJDP an opportunity to learn about practitioners’ challenges and successes, as well as the lived experience of youth with the juvenile justice system. Feedback from these events will inform OJJDP's approach in advancing the Office's three priorities:
- Treating children as children.
- Serving young people at home with their families, in their communities.
- Opening up opportunities for youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
Feedback from the discussions will help OJJDP:
- Improve its services to more effectively meet the needs of justice-involved youth.
- Identify gaps and barriers youth face in accessing resources in their communities.
- Create opportunities for youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
- Refine its vision of racial equity and fairness in juvenile justice.
- Center youth and families impacted by the juvenile justice system.
Listening Session Key Takeaways and Notes
Key Takeaways
- Treat children relative to their developmental capabilities, while incorporating trauma-informed care and culturally competent language and programming.
- Remove the perception that system-involved children are not part of our community or are inherently different from other children in our community.
- There is a lack of funding for trauma-informed, culturally competent alternatives to juvenile detention.
- Limited funding prevents programs from hiring appropriately trained staff and providing support to retain qualified staff.
- The current system does not incorporate the experiences of youth and families impacted by the justice system.
- Find alternatives to incarceration by using evidence-based programs and research.
- There is a need for high-quality reentry support for system-involved children.
- Shift the system response to prevention strategies and away from reliance on lengthy prison sentences.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- Incorporate a multisystem approach that includes the family and improves collaboration between child welfare agencies, mental health treatment providers, and juvenile justice agencies.
- Increase focus on family needs and barriers, such as housing instability, food insecurity, and lack of transportation.
- Increase funding for and advocacy of innovative community-based, holistic, culturally competent programs that include wraparound services.
- Increase technical assistance to help community-based organizations access federal and state grants and secure state funding.
- Provide community-based programs evaluation funding and support.
- Elevate the voices of those impacted and community-based organizations.
- Synthesize and summarize data in an easy-to-understand format that addresses misconceptions about violent crime trends and youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
- Expanded the use of pre-arrest diversion and deflection programs.
- In rural areas where access to technology can be limited, there is a need for services and programs located in the community.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- Building an integrated continuum of care is a heavy lift.
- Increase holistic cross-collaboration between systems, remove silos, and provide wraparound stabilization support that includes the family.
- There is a need to hold all youth-serving agencies accountable when they fail to provide the appropriate services to youth and families in their care.
- There is a need for a sequential model of the juvenile justice system that identifies appropriate community-based interventions at each step and focuses on preventing children from further system involvement.
- To meet the needs of families, fund innovative strategies that provide skill-building and relationship-building programs for youth.
- Increase funding for smaller organizations and include funds for research and evaluation services and administrative costs.
- Provide technical support for strategic planning to create shared goals across the systems that serve youth and families.
- Incorporate credible messengers to provide information about the justice system to youth and families in a way that is accessible and understandable.
- Increase cross-system information and data sharing.
- Expand research and evaluation to include intermediate outcomes that focus on progress, not just success verse failure.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- The justice system “adultifies” or views children of color as older and more mature than white children, resulting in harsher punishments.
- Increase funding for community-based programs for capacity building and staffing to reduce waitlists.
- Provide training about youth development and community-based alternatives to judges and prosecutors.
- Increase funding for community- and youth-led research with a focus on system-involved youth and utilize alternatives to academic journals (e.g., photo novellas, videos, and art projects).
- Use behavioral health coordinating council models to provide appropriate interventions or services prior to justice system involvement.
- Increase and improve education and employment services for youth reentering the community.
- Provide funding and support for post-disposition council and advocacy to help youth have their record expunged.
- Increase funding for programs that use healing modalities and peer mentors.
- Community programs are unable to access accurate data from state agencies to help inform resources needed. Often, agencies do not collect data regarding sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, and Tribe affiliation.
- Increase funding for supportive resources and services for youth and families such as housing, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, and training programs.
- Support legislative efforts to end corporal punishment in schools.
- Oppose “school hardening” legislation that bolsters physical security at local schools.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) sets the floor for states, the basic core protections that youth deserve, and the standard for juvenile justice settings that the federal government provides.
- The JJDPA also is a springboard for juvenile justice facilities and systems to evolve. The JJDPA encourages and promotes reform efforts in the states.
- Expand resources for youth tried as adults and support legislation to remove the valid court order exception.
- Provide funding to improve data collection and reporting capabilities.
- The Title II grant process should be streamlined and updated; it is a difficult process to receive funds and many of the program areas are no longer relevant.
- Expand the JJDPA to emphasize a continuum of care that includes reentry services.
- Create technical assistance that provides a blueprint for alternatives to detention and help states implement programs that have demonstrated success in other jurisdictions.
- Provide in-depth technical assistance to states that are not in compliance with the core requirements and support them to become complaint instead of punishing those systems.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- OJJDP can support training for all youth- and family-serving agencies about youth neurological and psychosocial development.
- OJJDP can support training for justice system stakeholders to create more uniform responses to juvenile referrals across jurisdictions.
- Increase funding that would allow jurisdictions to create crisis intervention teams specifically trained to respond to youth.
- OJJDP can help provide support for collaboration between stakeholders along the continuum of agencies that provide services to youth and families.
- OJJDP can be more accessible. Accessible materials and processes are essential to stop youth from going in and out of the system. There needs to be a focus on training staff on accessibility and best practices, especially as they pertain to Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
- OJJDP can support increasing the focus on providing individualized treatment.
- There is a lack of programs that provide holistic support and wraparound services, incorporate peer support or mentors, and provide support while youth transition to adulthood.
- OJJDP can support funding for programs that are informed by individuals with lived experience.
- The current juvenile justice intake process evaluates the youth’s criminogenic risk and needs to create a case plan. This process should be expanded to include the individual youth’s goals and vision of success.
- The juvenile justice system and youth-serving organizations need to expand the definition of family beyond blood relations so that individuals close to the youth can participate in family team meetings and provide support for system-involved youth.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- The science on neurological development should inform policy decisions regarding the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
- OJJDP should support efforts to decriminalize normal childhood and adolescent behaviors.
- OJJDP should fund planning and coordination and capacity-building grants specifically for communities and grassroots organizations to design programs and eventually receive funding.
- OJJDP should partner with Health and Human Services and other government agencies to provide holistic funding to communities.
- There is a need for national data on the number of justice system-involved youth and the number of youth in out-of-home placements.
- OJJDP should support efforts to remove barriers to accessing education and employment opportunities by promoting resources to aid with expungement.
- OJJDP should support an integrated youth voice and collaboration in state and local governments.
- OJJDP should provide funding and technical assistance for youth-serving organizations to build capacity to effectively reach and communicate with youth where they are, online and through social media.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- Children need opportunities to laugh, learn, play, and develop their own interests.
- OJJDP could support the development of a platform for providers to share best practices, program implementation, and lessons learned across jurisdictions and create opportunities for train-the-trainer training.
- Provide funding for communities to create an inventory of available resources as well as identify gaps in services to better support children and families in their communities.
- OJJDP could support funding for training and educational programs for families.
- Increase funding for programs that provide individualized treatment and services to youth and their families.
- Policy guidelines from OJJDP that really affirm the importance of diversion programs, peer advocates, and mentors are needed.
- OJJDP could support opportunities for cross-system collaboration, support, and education to reduce referrals to the juvenile justice system from schools, child welfare agencies, and foster care.
- Increasing funding for pro-social programs and the community is a useful way to open opportunities for justice-involved youth.
Listening Session Materials
Key Takeaways
- OJJDP should increase funding for strengths-based community interventions that promote protective factors in youth.
- OJJDP should help promote paid reentry opportunities for youth and support services that continue after justice involvement.
- Comprehensive data is needed to counter anecdotal stories that focus on extreme incidents.
- OJJDP could support efforts to address the stigma around justice-involved youth and their families.
- OJJDP should support policies that shift resources from juvenile facilities to pilot programs that provide direct services to youth in the community.
- OJJDP should increase funding for individualized treatment programs that align with the risk, need, responsivity principle of using least-restrictive interventions.
- OJJDP could support policies that require youth access to defense attorneys during interrogation, arrests, and bail hearings.
- OJJDP should provide guidance on creating polices that are research based and data driven to inform a process for removing youth from the adult system and preventing the transfer of youth to the adult system.
Listening Session Materials
Participating Organizations
As of August 2, 2022, organizations from 34 states and the District of Columbia have attended OJJDP's first 9 listening sessions. OJJDP anticipates participation from all 50 states through upcoming national and regional sessions.
List of participating organizations through August 2:
- Afterschool Alliance
- Alianza for Youth Justice
- Alianza for Youth Justice/ Youth Alliance
- Alliance for Safety and Justice
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Institutes for Research
- American Probation and Parole Association
- American University
- American Youth Policy Forum
- Annie E. Casey Foundation
- Arizona Youth Partnership
- Association of Children's Residential & Community Services (ACRC)
- Atlanta's John Marshall Law School
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
- Booz Allen Hamilton
- Boston College Law School; I Am Why
- Boys & Girls Clubs of America
- Boys Town
- Bridges USA
- Calamari Productions
- Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth
- Carey Group
- Catholic Charities USA
- Cecil County Government
- Center for Children's Law and Policy
- Center for Disability Rights
- Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University
- Center for Law and Social Policy
- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
- CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs
- Chief Juvenile Attorney, Ocean County Prosecutors Office
- ChildFocus Partners
- Children, Youth and Families Department
- Children's Defense Fund
- Children's Law Center
- Citizens for Juvenile Justice
- Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ)
- College Mentors for Kids
- Collier Collective, LLC
- Columbia Justice Lab
- Communities for Just Schools Fund (CJSF)
- Communities United For Restorative Youth Justice
- Community Connections for Youth
- Community Law In Action (CLIA)
- Connecticut Justice Alliance
- Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators
- Council on Legal Education Opportunity, Inc. (CLEO)
- Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement
- Criminal Justice Institute
- DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services
- Delaware Office of Defense Services
- Education Civil Rights Alliance/NCYL
- Fair and Just Prosecution
- Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC)
- Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children
- Father Flanagan's Boys' Home (Boys Town)
- First Focus On Children
- Ford Foundation
- Forum for Youth Investment
- Frank Porter Graham Child Dev Institute-UNC Chapel Hill
- Free Minds Book Club
- Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop
- Friends of the Children
- Frontline Solutions
- Georgetown University
- Governor's Office of Crime Prevention, Youth, and Victim
- Grantmakers for Girls of Color
- Human Rights for Kids
- Impact Justice
- Institute for Policy Studies
- Intergovernmental Research (IIR)
- Invent Yourself, LLC
- Iowa Department of Human Rights
- John Hopkins University, Bloomberg
- John Marshall Law School
- Justice Action Network
- Justice For Families
- Juvenile Justice Coalition
- Juvenile Law Center
- Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice
- Kentucky Juvenile Justice Advisory Board of KY and Jewish Family and Career Services
- Kentucky State Advisory Group
- La Plazita Institute
- Lambda Legal
- Latin American Youth Center
- Lehigh County Office of Children and Youth Services
- Liberty Hill
- Lone Star Justice Alliance
- Macaluso & Associates, LLC
- Maine Center for Juvenile Policy & Law
- Maryland Department of Juvenile Services
- Massachusetts Department of Youth Services
- MENTOR
- Minnesota Indian Affairs Council
- National Association of Counsel For Children
- National Association of Counties Research Foundation
- National CASA/GAL Association
- National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJFCJ)
- National Center for Youth Law
- National Conference of State Legislatures
- National Crittenton
- National District Attorneys Association
- National Governors Association
- National Juvenile Justice Network
- National PAL
- National Police Athletic/Activities Leagues, Inc
- National Recreation and Park
- New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
- New Jersey Parents Caucus
- New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department
- New Mexico Youth Justice Coalition
- Northeast Region Gault Center/ NJ OPD
- NYU Marron Institute
- OCA Arlington County and City of Falls Church
- Office of the Deputy Mayor of ED - Students in the Care of DC
- Office of Youth and Community Restoration
- Oregon Youth Development Division
- Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
- Renewed Minds & Raw Wisdom LLC
- Rights4Girls
- RISE for Youth
- SAY San Diego
- SJ Vetter Consulting
- Southern Poverty Law Center
- State of Utah
- Strong Arms of Mississippi
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
- Sycamores
- The Children's Law Center
- The Forum for Youth Investment
- The Gault Center (formerly National Juvenile Defender Center)
- The Hive
- The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform
- The Office of Youth and Community Restoration
- The Up Center
- Three Flights Consulting
- United Women in Faith
- University of San Diego School of Law, Children's Advocacy Institute
- Unlock The Box Campaign
- Village of Arts & Humanities
- Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services
- Washington County Juvenile Department
- YMCA Knoxville
- YMCA of the USA
- Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc.
- Youth Collaboratory
- Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice
- Youth Justice Action Council
- Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project
Submit Your Input
We would like to hear from you! Submit your feedback on the Office’s priorities.
Date Created: July 14, 2022