The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center—in partnership with the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University and the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute—will provide training and technical assistance (TTA) to assist existing OJJDP grantees as well as new grantees to develop and implement research-based, data-informed policies, practices, and resource allocation strategies that reduce recidivism, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and improve outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system.
To accomplish this goal, the CSG Justice Center and partners will provide TTA that supports these states to achieve their reform objectives and realize costs savings that can be reinvested into system improvements. TTA will focus on ensuring states involve a collaborative set of stakeholders to guide the identification of consensus-based system improvement strategies. In addition, we will conduct data analysis, stakeholder focus groups, and directly engage with youth and families impacted by the system to inform each state’s priorities for reform. Subsequently, TTA will help states to establish detailed implementation plans, and assist states to adopt the policies and procedures, funding strategies, and tools needed to implement reforms in key areas with fidelity, including diversion, assessments, evidence-based programs, graduated responses, supervision approaches, and alternatives to incarceration and justice reinvestment strategies. Finally, CSG will provide TTA to help states to develop the performance measures, data collection processes, and analytic and reporting procedures needed to evaluate implementation progress and the impact of reforms and to use data in an ongoing way to guide and sustain system improvements.
To support this work, CSG will engage in monthly TTA calls with each state, quarterly progress reviews, and site visits as needed. CSG will also provide training as needed for agency line and management staff, facilitate taskforce and working group meetings, support formal peer learning exchanges within and amongst state grantees, and connect states to national experts and models along with a variety of distance learning resources. The CSG Justice Center will track and evaluate progress on these activities and report progress through a sophisticated web-based data collection system customized for federal grantee TTA.
