Youth and family advisory council and upgraded emergency preparedness and shelter in place plan

Proposal Abstract
 
The El Dorado County Probation Department's Juvenile Treatment Center (JTC) aims to enhance its emergency evacuation and shelter-in-place processes to provide trauma-informed care for detained youth during environmental emergency situations. These situations include sheltering in place, evacuations, heavy snowfall, road closures, and wildfire smoke. To achieve this goal, the JTC will establish a Youth and Family Advisory Council, which will be consulted to improve emergency procedures. The pilot Youth and Family Advisory Council will serve as a model for expanding such councils to other areas of the department in the future. The anticipated outcomes of the Youth and Family Advisory Council are to ensure that all experiences related to environmental emergencies prioritize trauma-informed care for detained youth and to use this pilot to inform system-wide improvements guided by the voices of youth and families. The impact of these improvements will extend beyond El Dorado County's youth to those from other counties across California placed in the JTC under contractual agreements. By creating an emotionally and psychologically safe space for justice-involved youth and families, the proposal seeks to remove barriers and foster collaboration and trust to drive meaningful system-level changes.