Fulton County Youth Intervention Planning program (YIP)

Fulton County Juvenile Court (FCJC), in partnership with additional supporting Fulton County agencies and engaged community partners from all sectors, will implement the Fulton County Youth Intervention Planning program (YIP) that will convene the Planning Council of Community Stakeholders (PCCS) to: (i) identify and evaluate current intervention programs for youth (ages 12-17) within Fulton County that are aimed to reduce involvement with the justice system; (ii) identify strategies for cost savings and opportunities for impact reinvestments into programs and initiatives with proven results; and (iii) establish a continuum of care framework that supports the decarceration and diversion of at-risk youth within the service area. The PCCS will be led by Dr. Volkan Topalli, an expert on urban violence, drug markets, youth crime, and community crime prevention and a Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University (GSU). The GSU research team will implement a 3-phase approach to include interviews with at-risk and justice-involved youth and their families, community-based service providers currently receiving referrals from FCJC, and additional community-based organizations that have not yet been vetted by the Court but are providing known impacts to the community. Additional quantitative data analyses will follow the Cardiff Violence Program Model and will include geographically identified trend data from Fulton County and constituent municipality agencies and administrative data from FCJC. The final deliverables include: (1) an asset map of all identified resources and programs within the County; (2) an internet dashboard/database to be used by FCJC and Fulton County citizens to locate much-needed effective service providers within communities throughout the County; (3) a final report with findings from all program evaluations that identifies strengths and areas for improvement; and (4) an online training curriculum to increase the capacity of community-based service providers to collect, analyze, and report participant data to increase fund development efforts and long-term sustainability. Intended beneficiaries include Fulton County agencies and citizens, along with other jurisdictions throughout the State that could implement a similar method of establishing an effective continuum of care for at-risk and justice-involved youth and their families.