Systems Change

Characteristics

Systems change, as differentiated from changes in individuals, has important characteristics, which are discussed below.

Systems change is pervasive and involves multiple organizations. Many youth show signs of risk years before becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. They may have demonstrated early school failure, had a history of trauma, and/or exhibited problems with behavior. They are often involved with child welfare, special education, mental health, and juvenile justice agencies, without any communication or coordination among these agencies regarding their needs. Systemwide coordination of services for these youth—including program linkage, service integration, and interagency collaboration (both public and private)—has the potential to identify youth or families being served by more than one agency or system, assess system functioning through case reviews, and facilitate joint case planning.

Coordination may also include assigning a single case manager to monitor interagency services being provided to a child or family, thereby ensuring continuity of care. Fiscal changes to support service coordination include resource pooling, fund sharing, joint hiring, and other cost-sharing practices developed through interoffice and/or interagency collaborative efforts. Coordination should occur between different components of the juvenile justice system and between the juvenile justice system and related youth-serving systems (e.g., education, health, mental health, substance abuse, and recreation). In this way, each participant may see how its change process fits into the larger goals of improved justice, safer communities, and greater family well-being. Systems change accomplishes changes affecting many agencies across the youth-serving system—rather than isolated changes in one agency.

Systems change follows changes in beliefs and leads to altered behaviors. Mutually agreeing on a cross-agency philosophy and direction for juvenile justice intervention is a significant and powerful systems change. Different agencies that work with youth could consider a variety of philosophical changes and directions. One example of a cross-agency philosophy is one that fosters developmental progress in children. Under a developmental framework, juvenile offenders would be viewed as youth whose decisionmaking and judgment had been compromised by a lack of life experience, an inability to anticipate and understand the consequences of their behavior, and risk factors such as impulsivity, past trauma, school failure, and substance abuse.

A developmentally driven juvenile justice system designs interventions based on how the individual youth functions cognitively and morally and how his or her delinquency may be connected to early victimization. Altered behaviors resulting from this approach would include a shift away from a young person's "bad behavior" toward accountability, mature thinking, and nondelinquent choices.

Another example of the power of changing beliefs is training in cultural sensitivity and cultural competency. Such training seeks to increase knowledge about different cultures, address cultural biases and stereotypes, and produce changes in belief systems, behaviors, and practices of individuals and the organizations to which they belong. If this type of training were mandatory and provided systematically throughout the juvenile justice and related youth-serving systems, cultural understanding within organizations would improve and interventions would become culturally relevant and more likely to be successful (Federle and Chesney-Lind, 1992; Pinderhughes, 1989). Similarly, if the culture of the system were one of collaboration rather than competition, more interagency agreements to comprehensively and effectively address juvenile delinquency would be established. Systems change resulting from changes in the belief system of the individuals within the system and the culture of the entire system is not superficial, but fundamental.

Systems change is far reaching. The effects of systems change extend far beyond the particular youth and families served by individual programs. On the contrary, if research-based training and technical assistance were systematically provided to staff, professional skills would be enhanced on a large scale. If new and improved policies and procedures were established through either administrative efforts or legislative reform and if these new policies and procedures were judiciously enforced, the behaviors of many in the system would be changed as a result. Systems change—whether taking the form of enhanced professional skills on a systemwide basis, legislative reform, or improved policies and procedures—is far reaching, affecting countless youth and families in widely spread geographic areas. Similarly, successful pilot programs carefully replicated and expanded in additional sites not only increase the system's capacity, in order to provide a particular type of intervention or service, but significantly multiply the number of youth and families assisted by the system.

Systems change, if properly maintained, is long lasting. Any major systems changes within the juvenile justice system and its partner agencies are likely to be gradual, and they generally require the concerted efforts of many people. Legislative reforms, for example, involve dynamic leaders and persistent grassroots activists working together through a painstaking consensus-building process. Policy changes and establishment of interagency agreements must be spearheaded and facilitated by leaders who possess foresight and strong persuasive abilities. However, once legislative reforms or new policies and procedures are implemented, refined, and properly maintained, the resulting systems change should endure without the continued involvement of the few dynamic individuals who were instrumental in initiating the change.

Requirements

The requirements for achieving this kind of pervasive, fundamental, far-reaching, and long-lasting systems change are described below.

A "big picture" perspective. States first need to be convinced of the benefits of systems change. They must envision how they want their juvenile justice system to function, assess how it currently functions, set priorities for change-related efforts, and persevere on a long-term basis. States need to define policy goals before undertaking policy change. Having such a big picture perspective means going beyond the confines of one's own agency and initiating the process of changing beliefs and behaviors at many different places on many different levels. Because the work of systems change and systems improvement is complex and often met with resistance, a big picture perspective means continuing long-term change efforts while remaining guided by the clearly articulated desired outcome.

Cross-agency group efforts. Systems change affects juvenile justice professionals, staff from other youth-serving agencies, and members of the community. Interagency groups, therefore, must coordinate planning and implement plans to address systemic problems. Cross-agency efforts produce systemic change when participating agencies do the following:

• Agree on goals.
  
  
• Clearly articulate the system problems to be addressed.
  
  
• Avoid placing blame.
  
  
• Identify a connection between planned changes and desired outcomes.
  
  
• Coordinate changes across agencies and communities being served.
  
  
• Obtain feedback about the consequences of the changes and alter their efforts accordingly.

Ongoing data collection and effective use of research and evaluation findings. Research must be conducted to document systemic problems and propose specific solutions. States are already familiar with one example of this approach: the use of research to address the issue of disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) in secure facilities. Most States have conducted extensive research to determine the existence of DMC in their facilities, assess the factors contributing to DMC, and implement intervention strategies. Continued research on DMC trends and the effectiveness of various DMC strategies is necessary to document the impact of States' DMC efforts. Research data also provide a basis for sound legislative and funding decisions (described below) and objective measures of progress in systems change.

Drawing from existing research, States and communities can often identify strategies that have demonstrated their effectiveness. For example, the following eight approaches all have an empirical basis for contributing to reductions in delinquency: (1) building on juveniles' strengths, (2) empowering families, (3) involving young people with prosocial peers, (4) improving juveniles' empathy, (5) strengthening their anger management and decision-making skills, (6) treating substance abuse, (7) imposing immediate and graduated sanctions, and (8) providing intensive reentry or aftercare services to ensure juvenile offenders' successful return to their communities (Altschuler and Armstrong, 1994; Henggeler et al., 1995; Lewis et al., 1994; Umbreit, 1995). States and communities are encouraged to apply these approaches in developing their juvenile justice programs. Effective systemwide expansion of demonstration projects requires that the initial demonstration be carefully designed with the purpose of collecting data to guide implementation elsewhere.

Commitment of funds when necessary for systems change. Once research identifies what works and what does not work in reducing delinquency, financial incentives may be necessary to implement a change. The State Challenge Activities Program is one funding source, but other funding mechanisms have been developed as well. For example, some States have invested additional resources to develop an array of community-based services. Later, they may redirect savings expected from reductions in facility size and from discontinued facilities and related services to further enhance community-based programs. In addition, funds are needed for planning, training and staff development, service capacity building, and other related tasks of systems reform.

Policy and procedure changes and legislative reforms. Policy and procedure changes provide guidance for a system's daily operation and may signal significant shifts in the system's culture, beliefs, and goals. Sometimes, these changes occur through administrative channels. Other times, they require enacting new laws or amending existing laws. Legislative change, often with fiscal implications, sets the stage for a series of systems changes to occur for a long period of time. Like many of the systems changes discussed above, such legislative reform is most likely to succeed if it is based on valid research data. Although frequently a time-consuming process, legislative reform has the potential for producing broad-based change in every aspect of the system.

Top-down and bottom-up commitment. Systems change—from initiating to implementing to sustaining the change—requires both top-down and bottom-up commitment. That is, the juvenile justice and other child and family-serving agencies must embrace the systemic change at the leadership level and redirect staff and funding as necessary to implement it. At the same time, line staff in public and private programs and community-based groups should believe in the need for change and remain fully involved in designing and implementing the change. Only when staff feel empowered and sufficiently supported can the change continue. Similarly, only when youth in the juvenile justice system and their parents are effectively involved throughout the systems change process, can the resultant policies and practices be truly responsive to the needs of its consumers.

System Change Through State Challenge Activities: Approaches and Products	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • March 2000