Guide for Delivering Effective Services to Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth

A

cknowledgements

T C

able of ontents

Authors: Marc Wheeler Associate Director, Research and Development, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

Sandra Louk LaFleur Associate Vice President, Research, Evaluation & Innovation, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

Francis Mendez Director of Juvenile Justice, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

Introduction page 1 National Juvenile Justice Strategy page 5 Community Engagement and Partnership page 11 Talent Management and Development page 16 Adaptations to the Core Functions of the Service Delivery Model page 18

The authors would like to thank the following individuals for contributing to this report: • Jennifer Kline Clark, for interviewing the pilot agencies regarding their experiences • Christen Rhoadarmer, for graphic design • Claus Tjaden, Gil Levy, Liz Chipman, Beth Rose-Kearns, Ted Martinez, Jeremy Foster, Tony Newman, and Carly Southworth for review and suggestions • Stacey Gurian-Sherman, for content on volunteer training • And finally, the staff in the ten Pilot Agencies, whose hard work and dedication made this guide possible: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Alaska Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas Big Brothers Big Sisters Columbia Northwest Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Chesapeake Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Chicago Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Detroit Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern Pennsylvania For questions regarding this report, please contact Francis Mendez at 215.432.0081 or [email protected] Please print this report on double-sided paper.

Customer Relations Enrollment and Matching Volunteer Training Match Support Conclusion

page 19 page 21 page 22 page 24 page 25

Appendices page 26 Volunteer Training Guide page 27 Sample Youth Outcome Development Planning Form Page 35 References page 38

This manual does not represent legal advice, and in all cases agencies utilizing this manual should obtain legal advice to ensure that their policies and procedures comply with local, state, and federal law.

Copyright © 2013 | Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

I

ntroduction This Guide is offered as a tool for agencies to use when planning services to juvenile justice-involved youth. We define “juvenile justice-involved” youth as those youth who have had an arrest, a court appearance for a delinquent act, or a probation or court intake (including those for status offenses) prior to being matched.

In 1904, Ernest Kent Coulter, a former New York City newspaperman turned court clerk, noticed that many boys were coming through his courtroom. He believed that if these young people had a caring adult in their lives they could stay out of trouble. He made his famous plea at the men’s club of the Central Presbyterian Church of New York, which included business and community leaders. He told them about a youth who was to be sentenced for 18 months in a reformatory for a petty offense: “There is only one possible way to save that youngster, and that is to have some earnest, true man volunteer to be his big brother. To look after him, to help him do right, to make the little chap feel that there is at least one human being in this great city who takes a personal interest in him, who cares whether he lives or dies. I call for a volunteer.” Thirty-nine men stepped forward to volunteer that day, marking the beginning of the Big Brothers Big Sisters movement. Over 100 years later, Big Brothers Big Sisters serves almost 200,000 youth annually through 345 local affiliates throughout the country.

Ernest Kent Coulter founded the organized Big Brothers movement by obtaining 39 volunteers, who each agreed to befriend one boy. 1

In 2007, Big Brothers Big Sisters developed a new nationwide strategic direction that focused on “What we achieve and why it matters.” In 2010, this strategic direction was updated with an accountability statement for achieving positive outcomes in the children we serve, including: (1) higher aspirations, greater confidence and better relationships; (2) avoidance of risky behaviors; and (3) educational success. This new focus highlights youth outcomes at the individual and family level, as well as our collective impact. By positioning Big Brothers Big Sisters as the preferred partner for communities and schools, we advance our model as a solution for emotional and social well-being, juvenile justice and education issues for children facing adversity. And by returning to our roots in working with delinquent youth, we ensure that our focus will remain on these children for years to come.

The ten JJI pilot agencies are: • • • • • • • • • •

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Alaska Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas Big Brothers Big Sisters Columbia Northwest Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Chesapeake Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Chicago Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Detroit Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern Pennsylvania

Their experiences, represented in this document, serve as a guide in helping other agencies who seek to advance their own local efforts in partnering deeply and effectively with juvenile justice organizations. We have learned that effectively serving juvenile justice-involved youth requires crucial integration of key components that tie together visionary leadership, intentional partnerships, strong staff development, and key service delivery enhancements.

Our Business Case for Serving Higher Risk Youth Our commitment to helping youth avoid risky behaviors and juvenile delinquency manifested in the creation of the Big Brothers Big Sisters Juvenile Justice Initiative (JJI), funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) National Mentoring grant. The Juvenile Justice Initiative has three goals: (1) expanding mentoring services to children who are at-risk or high-risk for delinquency; (2) improving our system of measuring youth outcomes related to delinquency; and (3) building our network’s capacity to serve juvenile justice-involved youth. A key component of the Juvenile Justice Initiative was the designation of ten Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies as “pilots.” Designed to work closely with our Director of Juvenile Justice, our Research, Evaluation and Innovation team, and external juvenile justice consultants; these ten agencies advance Big Brothers Big Sisters’ understanding of working with juvenile justice-involved youth. Pilot agencies have opportunities to peer share with other pilot agencies; have been asked to execute our national juvenile justice strategy and provide feedback; and have built capacity to serve children at different points of the continuum. They have also focused on building strong partnerships and alliances with public systems and are testing new measures for truancy and school engagement. 2

Big Brothers Big Sisters’ strategic direction commits the organization to holding ourselves accountable for impacting delinquency and diverting young people from entering the juvenile justice system. In order to achieve impact at scale we must strengthen our relationship with the juvenile justice community and deepen our impact. Public systems, like juvenile justice, are key investors in achieving the outcomes envisioned in our strategic direction. They are institutional beneficiaries of our work. Coordinating effectively with them can help strengthen our impact by accessing their data and bolstering our relevance as a solution for the youth they serve. Many of our agencies continue to struggle to gain recognition for their role in the community’s solutions to juvenile delinquency. While the business case is clear, we sometimes fail to communicate that case to our potential partners, especially when we utilize our own internal jargon too much. When we fail to make our business case using terms and constructs familiar to the juvenile justice sector, we risk important opportunities to establish relevance. Helping our external partners understand how our Big Brothers Big Sisters brand of mentoring is an effective solution strategy for the work they are involved in is a fundamental first step. 3

A recent meta-analysis of mentoring research indicated “Mentoring programs … generally have been more effective when directed toward youth who have been identified as exhibiting behavioral difficulties such as delinquent behavior.” 1 Additionally, a review of programs for delinquent youth found that mentoring has been shown to be amongst the programs that have the greatest effects on reducing recidivism2. Another meta-analysis found that mentoring was effective in reducing offending, but only when combined with other interventions3. Mentoring as a sole intervention did not influence delinquency-related outcomes, suggesting that additional supports are needed to effectively serve delinquent youth. However, the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring model is recognized as an evidence-based approach to prevent youth delinquency. It is cited on the Blueprints for Violence Prevention list of model and promising programs, as an exemplary practice in OJJDP Model Programs Guide, and as an effective practice in the Office of Justice Programs Crimes Solutions Website. In the 1990’s, OJJDP funded a program called JUMP which provided mentoring to juvenile justice youth. An evaluation of the program indicated that mentoring addresses risk and protective factors by providing a positive adult role model, emotional support, help in navigating problem situations and by creating opportunities for supported academic and future career success4. Our experience with both our juvenile justice pilot sites and other agencies outside of this initiative has shown us that successfully serving juvenile justice-involved youth is possible. Many Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliates already serve this population and have a presence in different points of the juvenile justice mentoring continuum – working with youth who have a first time arrest to youth residing in correctional facilities. This diversity in our network can help drive learning and innovation in juvenile justice mentoring. So exactly what is required to be successful in serving juvenile justice-involved youth? From our experience with the Amachi program which serves youth who have incarcerated parents, we learned that effectively serving a specific population requires the following: 1. Access to the children that we are targeting for participation in our mentoring program;

N

ational Juvenile Justice Strategy

The implementation of our national Juvenile Justice Strategy has been established in conjunction with our Director of Juvenile Justice, our Research, Evaluation and Innovation (REI) team, our juvenile justice pilot agencies, external juvenile justice consultants and our national juvenile justice partners. Our national juvenile justice strategy is: To expand the use of the Big Brothers Big Sisters’ evidenced-based mentoring model by juvenile justice systems as a strategy to help reduce reliance on detention and out-of-home placement and to ensure successful re-entry for juvenile offenders

Our current national partners include: 1.

The National African American Drug Policy Coalition, which focuses on serving African American youth and on promoting drug policies and laws that embrace the public health nature of drug abuse and provide a more effective and humane approach to address the chronic societal problem of drug abuse;

2.

The American Probation and Parole Association, an international association, composed of members from the United States, Canada and other countries actively involved with probation, parole and community-based corrections, in both adult and juvenile sectors;

3.

The National Center for School Engagement, an organization that works with school districts, law enforcement and other entities to implement evidenced-based strategies to improve school attendance, attachment and achievement by providing training, technical

2. A volunteer pool that is interested and prepared to mentor the children targeted; 3. Adaptations to our model that are supported by research to more effectively serve the population targeted; and 4. The investment to make, support and sustain these matches.

In response to these valuable lessons learned, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America developed a national strategy for targeting juvenile justice-involved youth.

1 2 3 4

assistance, research and evaluation.

Dubois, et al. (2011). Lipsey, M. W. (2009). Joliffe & Farrington (2007). OJJDP (2000). 4

5

Big Brothers Big Sisters developed the following four core strategies to achieve our goals of expanding mentoring relationships with juvenile justice-involved youth, improving our impact and building our capacity.

Build bridges between juvenile justice and mentoring through partnerships. By establishing formal partnerships with juvenile justice stakeholders on a national and local level to promote collaboration, shared responsibility and systems coordination, we can bring the impact of our evidenced-based mentoring model to scale as a juvenile justice intervention. Our partnerships with juvenile justice stakeholders will drive better results in preventing delinquency and achieving greater impact through collaboration with the different agencies involved in the child and family’s life.

Become intentional about how we approach juvenile justice mentoring through our Service Delivery Model. This entails increasing intentionality in serving youth that are at-risk of or have had involvement with the juvenile justice system and continuing to enhance our model based on our experience in serving these youth with our juvenile justice partners. An intentional data-based approach to juvenile justice mentoring helps us cultivate best practices and grow our understanding of what works so that we can enhance our model. This approach will yield tangible benefits for our clientele and facilitate leveraged learning through systematic sharing of best practices across the network.

Understand and shape our work in delinquency prevention through research & evaluation. This involves building our capacity to collect, analyze and report on data that tracks our success in preventing delinquency and in impacting other associated factors. Research and evaluation provides a meaningful way to communicate our impact in preventing delinquency. It also allows us to create shared understanding and communication with our juvenile justice partners around the data that we should be collecting, analyzing and reporting to demonstrate our success.

Communicate our vision and influence change in the juvenile justice arena through advocacy. This means promoting sustainability of our juvenile justice initiative and to work collaboratively with the network to create awareness among policy makers about the effectiveness of mentoring for youth who are at-risk or have had involvement with the juvenile justice system. Advocacy allows the Big Brothers Big Sisters network to put forth a common agenda at the local and national level that will influence policy and increase the magnitude of our influence in the juvenile justice arena. It will also make a powerful case for sustained and increased support and funding for juvenile justice mentoring.

6

Our Approach to Serving Higher Risk Youth: Preventing Delinquency in a Youth Development Framework The Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) endorses a conceptual model called risk-protection which focuses on reducing the factors associated with juvenile delinquency (e.g., association with delinquent peers, antisocial beliefs or attitudes) while enhancing the protective factors that support healthy personal and social development (e.g., commitment to school, involvement in social activities). The risk-protection model first looks at how risk and protective factors influence positive youth development and problem behavior. It then suggests interventions to address the degree of risk and protective factors in the individual, while considering the child’s developmental stage. The focus is on reduction of risk factors and enhancement of protective factors with the goal of preventing delinquency and/or recidivism. This risk-protection model aligns with the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring model and our youth development focus and allows us to better understand the individual needs of children and how mentoring can help them. Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring mitigates risk factors associated with delinquency and strengthens protective factors by improving outcomes in family relationships, school performance, violence prevention, alcohol and substance abuse, and peer relationships. Our mentoring programs can have stronger outcomes in preventing delinquency if they are informed by a better understanding of how mentoring relationships and youth outcomes are conditioned by the range of individual, family and contextual influences. To help guide our work with each child, Big Brothers Big Sisters is developing a risk and protective factor inventory that will give staff a clear picture of the supports and barriers present in a child’s life. By incorporating the riskprotection model, agencies can adopt the language familiar to our juvenile justice partners and collaborate more effectively with them.

1

Look at how risk and protective factors influence positive youth development and problem behavior.

2

Design interventions to address the degree of risk and protective factors in the individual and factor in the child’s developmental age.

3

Focus on reduction of risk factors and enhancement of protective factors.

4

Work towards goal of preventing delinquency and/or recidivism. 7

Thus, youth reporting having an arrest in the 12 months prior to being matched are older, more likely to be male, more likely to be Hispanic, and more likely to have an incarcerated parent, than those youth without a prior arrest. They appear to have the same levels of poverty, as shown by percentage eligible for free and reduced lunch, and are no more likely to be White or Black. They are slightly more likely to come from a non-two parent home and are more likely being served in a community-based match.

How do juvenile justice-involved youth compare to youth typically served by Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies?

Given this data on arrested youth, juvenile justice-involved youth may not necessarily be much different than other populations of youth typically ser ved in a given Big Brothers Big Sisters agency. We can assume that juvenile justiceinvolved youth are more likely to be older, male, and served in community-based matches. However, they may come from the same neighborhoods, share the same risk factors, and attend the same schools as other populations of youth served. Juvenile justice-involved youth may have more issues with educational attainment, mental health, and substance abuse than the overall population, but it is unclear how different they are in these regards compared to other youth served by Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies. In part, this may depend on the degree of involvement the youth has with the juvenile justice system.

While data collection and reporting capabilities are currently limited for all juvenile justiceinvolved youth, we do have data on those youth who reported having at least one arrest in the past twelve months on their baseline YOS survey15. Based on this data, we can compare how arrested youth compare to youth who did not report a prior arrest:

14 37%

35% 30%

13

What differentiates juvenile justice-involved youth is their place on the continuum of services, from prevention to intervention. While the goal of many agencies is to prevent delinquent behavior in the youth served, the goal of serving juvenile justice-involved youth is to intervene after they’ve participated in delinquency in hopes of preventing them from engaging in delinquent behaviors in the future. And while targeting juvenile justiceinvolved youth means serving youth after they have exhibited delinquent behavior, the lessons Continuum learned in serving these youth may help the agency of Juvenile Justice work toward prevention of delinquent behaviors in other youth.

13.3***

20%

12 28% 25%**

11

11.2

15%

45% 43%

Percent Male 75%

75%

20%

21%

10

Percent Hispanic

Percent White

Percent Black

75%†

Age at time of match

72%

70%

69%***

Continuum of Juvenile Justice Target Population

20%

65% Arrested

17%

15%

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Non-arrested

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This data is based on the YOS Score Summary Report from July 2011 through June 2012, baseline surveys only. 704 out of 24,162 youth responding indicated an arrest in the last 12 months. 8

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