Supporting Youth Success in PA – Statewide Planning & Assessment Initiative

Through smart reforms, collaborative partnerships, and sustained investments, Pennsylvania (PA) has made significant progress over the past two decades to reduce the number of youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system. As the juvenile justice system and other youth-serving agencies face growing challenges – from mental and behavioral health needs to increased gun involvement and victimization among youth – a new approach is needed to identify innovative strategies to expand capacity of community-based services and supports for youth and their families along a continuum of care and opportunity. With that need and opportunity in mind, the PA Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), in partnership with WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Research Center (JPRC), will support an 18-month comprehensive ‘Supporting Youth Success in PA Statewide Planning & Assessment Initiative’ to help design, implement, and sustain local coordinated continuums of care and opportunity for at-risk and system-involved youth in PA, particularly in areas with limited resources/high levels of need. The project will engage state and local partners representing the full breadth of the Commonwealth’s youth-serving infrastructure through a comprehensive and collaborative systems mapping, assessment, and planning process focused on each point of the Sequential Intercept Model and guided by principles found within PA’s Juvenile Justice System Enhancement Strategy Framework. This project will ultimately result in the creation of a comprehensive statewide plan built on detailed cross-system data analysis offering funding, policy, and program recommendations to guide PA’s youth-focused services.