Courtsey of Senator Angela Bryant
Governor Pat McCrory announced that North Carolina is one of three states to be awarded a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) grant to implement an innovative reintegration of juvenile offenders into the community.
“Our strategy focuses on improved assessment, delivering the appropriate education or workforce training and family engagement so they can be the support system for their child when they re-enter the community,” Governor McCrory said. “Our youth must be given every chance to succeed and reach their potential.”
The U.S. DOJ awarded the North Carolina Department of Public Safety $1.1 million ($735,000 with a required match of $367,500) to implement the new community reentry program.
The Juvenile Reentry System Reform Program award funding is allocated to DPS for making system-wide reforms in service planning, mining our data to produce tools to enhance needs-to-service matching for youth involved in our system, and implementing system-wide changes in engaging families and enhancing educational and vocational outcomes. To provide stakeholder input or join a working committee on data analytics, family engagement and strengthening, workforce development and education, and service planning/service matching– please contact Jean Steinberg, Ph.D., Psychological Intervention and Implementation Specialist at jean.steinberg@ncdps.gov, 919-324-3686.
Specific elements to be created by the new program include
- Improved juvenile assessment policies and practices
- A comprehensive service plan throughout the juvenile justice system continuum
- Creation and implementation of a tool to match juveniles to the services they need
- Delivery of effective and developmentally appropriate programming for juveniles, including the development of an education and workforce development strategy that targets risk factors strongly associated with the production of crime.
- Implementation of a family engagement and strengthening strategy to ensure that juveniles reentering family life can depend upon a strong and stable support system
- Documenting the effects of this reentry reform strategy on recidivism, education, employment and behavioral health outcomes
This new strategic reentry plan was designed by officials within the Department of Public Safety’s Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice in consultation with its Juvenile Justice Reentry Reform Task Force, which is comprised of professionals from the fields of juvenile justice, mental health, the courts, community-based programs and workforce development.
The Task Force identified four overarching objectives essential to reentry systems reform effort.
- Delivery of risk and needs-driven case planning and service linkage, and employment of effective supervision practices.
- Delivery of effective and developmentally appropriate programming, including education and workforce development services that target criminogenic needs.
- Engagement and strengthening of families of youth involved along the juvenile justice continuum, including reentry.
- Documentation of the effect of the reentry reform strategy on recidivism, education, employment and behavioral health outcomes.
The goal of the Juvenile Re-Entry Program is to reduce the recidivism rate by 50% in 5 years and improve education, employment, and behavioral health outcomes of youth that are in long-term placement in the juvenile justice system that are returned to their communities.