You Only Live Once (YOLO) STL - Juvenile Reentry Program

The Second Chance Act provides a comprehensive response to the increasing number of incarcerated adults and juveniles who are released from prison, jail, and juvenile residential facilities and are returning to their communities. The FY 2013 Second Chance Act Juvenile Reentry Program helps ensure that the transition the youth make from secure confinement facilities to the community is successful and promotes public safety. A secure confinement facility may include a juvenile detention center, juvenile correctional facility, or staff-secure facility. Eligible juveniles must have been confined under juvenile court jurisdiction. CATEGORY 2: Implementation Projects must include specific strategies for implementing the ten Mandatory Requirements of a Comprehensive Reentry Program.

The St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE) reentry program attempts to prevent recidivism, while protecting youth from delinquent labeling and social isolation caused by involvement in the juvenile justice system. YOLO STL is designed to holistically assess 32 juveniles and provide them with intensive case management while individually matching each with a volunteer mentor. Intensive behavioral modification components begin prior to release but are integrated throughout the entire program. The program has over six evidence-based components, a research evaluation component, family reunification, and housing program. The wraparound services will service the youth and family. The family will receive services through Missouri Career Center - America Jobs Centers. There are two premier universities working with the program Washington University for legal services and Missouri State University for the independent evaluation. The philosophical underpinning of the program is based on community collaboration, information sharing and joint service planning among a committed range of partners including the juvenile court system, metropolitan police department, social services, legal clinics, mental health, public health, drug and alcohol abuse treatment, probation, and the local Workforce Investment Board. Each participant will be engaged in paid summer employment/work experience, job readiness training, financial literacy, and paid incentives; a vital step toward self-sufficiency and entering the workforce, and will receive up to 12 months of follow up services. The grant proposes the following outcomes: a 10% drop in recidivism in a year and a 50% drop over the next five years. Based on SLATE's Common Measures for Youth, the target outcomes are:
1) literacy and numeracy gains for out-of-school youth; 2) attainment of a diploma, GED or certificate for youth participants in school or not currently enrolled in GED; and 3) placement in employment or post-secondary education, for those youth who attain a diploma or GED.
CA/NCF