King County Care & Closure - Local Continuums of Care

King County proposes to implement the next phase of its existing Care & Closure initiative and create local continuums of care for youth success. Care & Closure is the County’s effort to expand community-based alternatives to support youth healing, accountability, and community safety and close the County’s secure youth detention center. The purpose of this planning and assessment grant is to conduct transition planning to expand local continuums of care, particularly for the highest-risk and highest-need justice-involved youth. Project activities include partnering with culturally specific and youth-serving community organizations in four specific geographic areas to lead and co-design asset mapping activities, gap analysis between service providers, and planning for local continuums of care that support the implementation of Care & Closure recommendations. King County will also leverage assistance with technical assistance providers and internal budget staff to identify possible cost savings to reinvest into local continuums of care, conduct fiscal analysis of the alternatives, and develop state policy approaches to address legislative changes needed to expand alternatives to secure youth detention. Expected outcomes include the development of an implementation plan to carry out community-centered recommendations and realize cost-savings. Ultimately, the outcomes will be to serve a greater number of youth in their communities by community-based alternatives to secure youth detention, reduce overall youth in detention, and improve outcomes for youth. Intended beneficiaries include youth under the age of 18 years old involved in the criminal legal system and their families. Subrecipient activities include community engagement and co-design in the planning process, asset mapping, and service gap analysis and local technical assistance to support community organizations.