The Task Force on Employment and Training for Court-Involved Youth was formed to increase collaboration between the juvenile justice system and the employment and training system. A number of other key systems also support the effective collaboration of juvenile justice and workforce preparation practitioners and policymakers. Other systems that serve court-involved youth include education, social services, community-based support, and the labor market. Improved communication, increased knowledge about system operations, and systemic change among these entities is equally important to meeting the needs of juveniles and the public safety. Ultimately, preparation for the workforce is a priority for each system. How can these diverse systems work together to develop a cohesive, consistent delivery system that responds to the employment and training needs of court-involved youth and the ultimate customer, the employer?
Earlier chapters in this Report highlight some of the obstacles encountered by court-involved youth and the programs that serve these youth. Some of the issues and circumstances at the State and system levels that prevent court-involved youth from participating fully in the workforce are summarized below.
The State Juvenile Justice System
Although the predominant response to youth violence has been to increase penalties for violent crime, several States have coupled these reforms with an increase in services for youth. Many have developed or expanded programs for youth that have already penetrated the juvenile justice system. A few States have targeted additional services for youth who are at immediate risk of placement in the juvenile justice system (early intervention/prevention) or have been released from residential facilities (aftercare). Other States have attempted to increase job opportunities for youth who have entered the juvenile justice system; some examples include afterschool academic programs, community service programs, and supervised work projects. In Colorado, the legislature has appropriated funding for a comprehensive violence prevention program that offers education, employment training, mentoring, and other support services for court-involved and at-risk youth.41
In spite of these efforts, limited attention is given to the developmental and workforce preparation needs of court-involved youth. A recent report by the Office of Justice Programs, Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising, suggests that programs that emphasize employment and the skills needed to find and keep a job are among the most effective treatments for court-involved youth.42 Many State juvenile justice agencies, however, are unfamiliar with contemporary youth development, labor market needs and strategies, workforce development, and School-to-Work principles and practices. The juvenile justice system, the State workforce development efforts, and the School-to-Work initiative have not been able to establish effective connections. Concerns about serving court-involved youth and the real and perceived difficulties of placing these youth in work-based learning opportunities, and subsequently into permanent employment, have made other systems reluctant to collaborate with the juvenile justice system. Other obstacles, discussed at greater length earlier in this Report, include security, public safety, and risk factors; lack of adequate resources and facilities; inability to engage employers and employment and training personnel; underuse of existing resources and systems to promote an integrated program of workforce preparation and treatment; and lack of knowledge.
 | Access to programs offered through the workforce development system is often hindered by lack of knowledge about both program availability and use of program resources. |
| Competition for resources among the various participants in the workforce development system can discourage new players from seeking active roles. |
| Performance requirements often exclude court-involved youth from workforce development programs. |
| Participation of court-involved youth in programs that meet their specific developmental and treatment needs even though they were not designed exclusively for court-involved youth needs to be emphasized. |
| Lack of information about the needs and treatment requirements of court-involved youth can result in misinformation by workforce development personnel or serve as a barrier to successful participation. |
Efforts are under way to develop a cohesive and seamless system of workforce development. These reforms will allow the juvenile justice system to become a more active player in the workforce development system and to reevaluate the extent to which worker preparation can be embraced as an important outcome for participating youth.
Court-involved youth have generally experienced limited academic success and therefore tend to lose interest in school. The strong link between academic failure and juvenile offending suggests the need for education reform to address the specific needs of these high-risk youth, as prevention, diversion, and aftercare strategies. The failure on the part of schools to address the needs of these youth may be due in part to the overwhelming task the schools face in meeting the needs of all students. Individual developmental and learning style differences among students are too often not accommodated. Early failure by youth is compounded as they move through the education continuum. “Zero-tolerance policies” often alienate certain youth.
Nearly all court-involved youth, regardless of adjudication status (i.e., early intervention, probation, community corrections, residential programming, parole, or aftercare), are expected to engage in educational activities stipulated in consent decrees or disposition plans. Frequently, for example, they are ordered to regularly attend the same school that failed to engage them effectively in the first place. Those who dropped out of school before their commitment to an institution are typically not eager to return to school. Many of these youth tend to be disruptive in the classroom.
Some youth, returning to the community from residential placement or being diverted from institutional care, are placed in community-based day treatment programs that too often offer a narrow range of treatment and educational services. Many youth have special education needs that may not have been diagnosed by the school system. Stronger connections between special education and programs that offer early intervention or prevention services and serve court-involved youth are critical components of education programming for court-involved youth and preparation for work readiness.
Many States require the juvenile justice system to notify school officials if a student has been adjudicated delinquent or is returning to school from a court-ordered residential commitment. Requirements to disclose information to schools about the juvenile records of returning youth often present a dilemma. Although intended to promote the safety and security of all students, these laws can make the adjustment or reintegration process more difficult for returning youth. It is often very difficult to reintegrate juvenile offenders into the schools, because schools resist their reenrollment. Further, educators, concerned about school safety, may have little patience for court-involved youth and may be eager to suspend or expel from school students who are disruptive or have the potential to engage in disruptive activities. For court-involved youth, the first misstep can often be a ticket out the door.
Education in Residential Facilities
Most State juvenile justice systems are bound by law to operate educational programs that meet State accreditation standards. However, when the status of education within residential facilities is examined, it is clear that youth development and workforce development principles are applied unevenly from institution to institution, even within the same State. Integration of special education and vocational education into the academic program is of particular importance and concern.
Residential facility education programs accredited by State education agencies must provide special education services to youth who fall within the guidelines established under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This Act requires that individualized education and transition plans be implemented for those youth who have disabilities. Institutions using IDEA funds must follow specific guidelines with respect to educational programming, class size, and accommodation assistance. Despite these legal requirements, many State juvenile justice systems do not consistently adhere to IDEA requirements.
In some States, court-involved youth age 16 and older may also be eligible for vocational rehabilitation services. The number of youth who are eligible for special education services may be higher than the current number actually reported and served. In too many instances, school failure resulting in the return of court-involved youth to the juvenile justice system can be attributed, in part, to undiagnosed cognitive, physical, and emotional disabilities, including fetal alcohol syndrome, learning disabilities, remote audio retention problems, limited visual acuity, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, and substance abuse.
Both academic and vocational education could be substantially improved in residential correctional facilities. Vocational education is usually most effective when the institution blends academic with vocational skills, offers vocational programs that reflect industry requirements, involves employers in the design and implementation of programs, and provides a practical hands-on method of learning. Many of the programs highlighted in the previous section offer this combination. Unfortunately, vocational education is often not given priority. Program content and equipment are frequently dated, and the quality of the hands-on activities does not reflect real-life experiences. More often than not, vocational education is not integrated with other workforce development strategies such as those of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act or the Job Training Partnership Act, nor does it prepare youth to find employment when they are released from the facility.
Many communities need alternative education programs for youth who have not been served well by traditional school programs, have dropped out, or have been expelled from school. Although alternative schools offer an option for disruptive or violent students, most of these programs address the needs of court-involved youth only in limited ways.
Alternative schools may be operated either by the school district or outside the school system. Many local school districts need to invest greater resources in the alternative schools they operate. According to a National Conference of State Legislatures’ survey report,43 statutes in 50 States permit State per-pupil education money to follow young people entering alternative learning environments. This authority is granted through provisions relating to open enrollment, special transfers, charter schools, postsecondary enrollment options, public-private cooperation, alternative schools, and learning centers. However, despite the legal authority to fund alternative learning opportunities for dropouts, per-pupil education money is rarely used for this purpose. In many States, only public school districts can establish such programs, but they have little incentive to do so. State funds alone are frequently insufficient to cover program costs, and local school systems are often unwilling to invest their resources in young people who have left their schools. This is unfortunate, because alternative or transition schools may offer an effective way to work with special needs children, including those returning from placement. Transition schools are generally more flexible and can work more readily with a juvenile regardless of the time in the school year he or she is reentering the system. Transition schools can help prepare the juvenile for reintegration into the regular school.
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In States that allow private, nonprofit alternative schools to access funds, these providers must apply to and be accredited by the local school system. Many school systems are not interested in helping alternative schools develop and compete with their own schools. Yet in at least three States—Arizona, Minnesota, and Oregon—and in numerous local communities, State money is funding programs for out-of-school youth on a relatively wide scale.
Although the primary focus of this Report is employment and training for court-involved youth, connections to other support services and sources of assistance are critical for these youth to become contributing members of society. The primary system responsible for meeting the social service needs of youth is the State agency with human services jurisdiction. The name of this agency has many variations depending on the State (e.g., Administration for Family Services, Department of Social Services, or Department of Human Services). Typically this department includes a division or office that deals exclusively with youth issues. Alternatively, a State-level agency that is dedicated to youth services may exist. In some cases, the juvenile justice system is administered under either the State human services or the youth services department. It is not uncommon for youth who come in contact with the court system to be served jointly by human or youth services department staff and juvenile justice system staff. This joint service is particularly common for youth who have been diverted from the justice system or youth who are operating under a consent decree.
State human or youth service departments provide funding for an array of services, including but not limited to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families; identification of noncustodial parents; housing assistance; emergency funds; family, personal, mental health, and substance abuse counseling; transportation and childcare assistance; alternative education; youth programming; emergency shelters; and spousal abuse prevention. Many of these services are brokered through other publicly funded agencies and private organizations. Court-involved youth may be assigned a social service caseworker in addition to a juvenile justice caseworker. The social service worker helps the youth find required community adjustment and treatment services and often serves as an advocate for the youth. Juvenile justice personnel ensure that youth comply with the court-ordered terms of early intervention, community corrections, parole, aftercare, probation, and other requirements.
A number of issues can hamper collaboration between social service systems and juvenile justice systems:
| Lack of clear-cut role definitions among the various divisions within State and local social service systems contributes to the delivery of fragmented services and prevents access to needed services. |
| Inconsistent development of treatment and action plans, especially for court-involved youth being served in the community, is an obstacle to these youth attaining critical goals and transition steps. |
| Monitoring the status of services is complicated by joint jurisdiction and oversight of court-involved youth, often by multiple agencies within the social service system. |
| Absence of a designated “single point of contact” and lack of systems-level case management result in disjointed service delivery and inability of systems to address the problems court-involved youth may encounter. |
| Fragmented and duplicative roles of various system components diminish the advocacy role of the social service system. |
| Social service workers’ lack of knowledge about what the labor market requires and employers need creates barriers resulting in job loss or interruption (e.g., appointments are scheduled at times that compete with work and/or work preparation responsibilities). |
Collaborative strategies and structures can help overcome some of these impediments. For example, joint teams can provide comprehensive assessments, case management, and brokerage services for juvenile offenders.
Community-Based Support Systems
Not-for-profit community-based organizations (CBO’s) may provide services similar to State-funded programs and may receive funds through subcontracts with State- or local-affiliated agencies. CBO’s usually offer a limited set of services and target a specific population, neighborhood, or geographical area. Some local jurisdictions encourage these organizations to form consortiums to reduce duplication of effort and maximize their resources. In addition to funding from State and local public agencies, CBO’s may receive funds from the United Way; private foundations; business and corporate sponsors; religious, ethnic, or nationality-focused organizations; and others.
Many CBO’s include job preparation services as part of their human services delivery system. YouthBuild is an example of a community-based work preparation program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many CBO’s also use AmeriCorps funds to provide job preparation services for youth. Although many CBO’s offer services to youth, few concentrate their resources exclusively on services for court-involved youth. Although it is desirable to identify and document the types of support services that court-involved youth need in treatment and aftercare (transition/reintegration) plans, these community supports are rarely specified.
Youth may also receive services through public housing communities, churches, education systems, workforce development agencies, and medical personnel, among others. It is conceivable for a youth to have multiple “caseworkers” working on his or her behalf but without consistent coordination. Consequently, competing priorities, multiple action plans, and the absence of a single point of contact lead many youth to withdraw from these support service connections in spite of available resources. This situation necessitates the collaborative structures noted above.
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Promising Systems Collaboration Models
Some State-level systems collaboration models effectively counter the seemingly vast number of obstacles and barriers that contribute to limited involvement of court-involved youth in labor market activities. Four of these models are described below.
YES: Youth Environmental Service Initiative
The Federal Youth Environmental Service (YES)44 initiative is designed to increase the capacity of
States and communities to treat and rehabilitate delinquent youth and to prevent at-risk youth from entering the juvenile justice system. YES is operated jointly by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the U.S. Department of the Interior. Under YES, Federal, State, local, and private agencies cooperate to develop work programs on environmentally sensitive lands. Target populations for YES programs range from youth who live in unserved communities to serious and violent juvenile offenders in both nonsecure and secure confinement programs. YES employs great flexibility, tailoring onsite residential, offsite residential, or day programs to each community’s special
needs. Seven sites have been established in the District of Columbia, Florida, Utah, and Virginia.
YES is funded locally and, although no direct Federal funding is awarded to support program operations, the Federal partners help develop YES programs by providing training, technical assistance, and resources such as access to Federal lands, facilities, and environmental works projects.
The goal of Texas’ Re-Integration of Offenders—Youth (RIO–Y) project is to prepare adjudicated
youth who are committed to the State’s custody to enter the workforce and/or to access education and training opportunities that will lead to meaningful employment. RIO–Y is an example of systems collaboration at the highest levels of State government, involving a partnership between the State’s juvenile corrections agency, the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), and the State’s recently consolidated workforce development agency, the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). RIO–Y reintegrates TYC youth into the community by linking TYC’s resocialization, educational, training, and specialized treatment services to TWC’s job placement and training programs while youth are incarcerated. RIO–Y focuses on employment training services and aftercare services that are available in the communities.
RIO–Y was established by an act of the Texas legislature in 1995 as a supplement to Project RIO, a job assistance program that has placed more than 200,000 adult offenders in jobs since 1985. The law forged a partnership between TYC and TWC and authorized funding to allow each agency to operate the program. The funding supports a workforce development counselor at each TYC residential facility. Resources available through TWC’s RIO–Y project provide employment assistance and those available through local workforce development boards provide other employment and training services to TYC youth in the community.
RIO–Y funding also supports a TYC coordinator with experience in workforce development to serve
as a liaison between the RIO–Y community-based and facility-based staff. The coordinator also works with community-based service providers across the State to expand employment and training opportunities for TYC youth and with TYC institutional staff to more closely align vocational offerings with demand occupations.
All youth committed to TYC receive an orientation to RIO–Y at least three times during their stay. To be eligible for RIO–Y services, the youth must be within 6 months of his or her projected release date, have earned or be working toward a high school diploma or GED, and be at or above level three of TYC’s five-level resocialization system. Once the youth is accepted in RIO–Y, program staff conduct an assessment of his or her aptitudes and interests and develop an employability development plan for the youth.
In the first phase of the program, RIO–Y participants explore careers via Texas Career Alternatives Resources Evaluation System (CARES), a computerized multimedia career information system developed by the Texas State Occupational Information Coordinating Committee. Texas CARES enables youth to identify and explore occupations that are in demand and training opportunities in their home community or community of release. Texas CARES also provides information about employers who have opportunities in demand occupations in each region of the State.
In the second phase of RIO–Y, youth participate in a range of services and activities to promote employability, including work readiness and job-seeking preparation, skills training, job shadowing, and internships on the institution grounds. Two TYC facilities also offer offsite work experience.
Upon release, RIO–Y participants are referred to the nearest TYC office for employment assistance
and, if needed, to the local One-Stop Center overseen by the local workforce development board. The One-Stop Centers provide job placement assistance and referral to appropriate training providers in the area of operation. RIO–Y participants are assumed to be job-ready upon release and therefore are not required to go through the assessment and job readiness program required of other TYC youth. In 1998, 25 percent of youth residing in TYC facilities were enrolled in RIO–Y.
In 1998, RIO–Y served 1,157 youth, with 833 referred to TWC for employment assistance upon release from a TYC facility. More than half (56 percent) of the youth referred to TWC found employment.
RIO–Y also met or exceeded its performance targets in other areas. The program’s goal was to serve 100 percent of youth who volunteered for the program in 1999. 45
In 1995, the State of Ohio launched Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternatives to
Incarceration of Minors (RECLAIM) Ohio as part of a statewide Family and Children First Initiative.46 RECLAIM Ohio provides juvenile court judges with the means to improve the quality and range of services available to youthful offenders in their own communities. By providing alternatives to commitment
in the State’s Department of Youth Services (DYS), RECLAIM Ohio is also helping to address the problem of overcrowding in the State’s juvenile correctional institutions.
Prior to this program, funding for State juvenile corrections programs created a fiscal incentive to commit adjudicated youth to secure confinement in a State institution. Commitment to a State facility was free to the county, while judges had to use court budgets to fund local alternatives. This resulted in mixing less serious, first-time delinquents with serious, violent, repeat felony offenders.
By giving county juvenile judges the resources to access, develop, or expand effective local alternatives to incarceration, RECLAIM Ohio empowers them to make the best decision for the community and the youth. It also provides judges with the power to purchase State commitment for individuals who require residential placement or secure confinement.
RECLAIM Ohio is administered by the Ohio DYS. Ohio’s 88 counties handle the community-based
component, and county commissioners serve as the fiscal agents. Funds are administered by the juvenile courts, which work in collaboration with community advisory boards or Family and Children First councils. Each county receives a funding allocation based on the number of felony adjudications in the county’s juvenile court. Each month, counties are debited 75 percent against this allocation for each youth placed in a DYS institution and 50 percent for each youth placed in a community correctional facility. Any funds remaining after debits are deducted are sent to the counties each month. Counties may use the remaining funds to purchase or develop a broad spectrum
of community-based programs for delinquent youth adjudicated for a felony who would otherwise have been committed to DYS. The funds may also be used to develop programs and services for other adjudicated juvenile offenders. The juvenile courts contract with private agencies to provide services ranging from family counseling to electronic monitoring and from day treatment to the development of skills to prepare these youth to live independently, including worker preparation programs.
During the first year of implementation, RECLAIM Ohio provided juvenile court judges with just under $18 million to serve more than 8,600 youth in community programs. In addition, the number of commitments to DYS dropped, despite an increase in the number of felony adjudications. In 1996, the Ford Foundation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University named
RECLAIM Ohio as a finalist in the Innovations in American Government Awards program.
During RECLAIM Ohio’s pilot year (1994), the participating jurisdictions experienced a 42.7-percent decrease in commitment to the Department of Youth Services compared with 1993. The average age of youth served in 1997 was 15.3 years. More than 37 percent of those admitted to RECLAIM Ohio were felony offenders. The number of adjudications has continued to decline from 25.67 percent in 1990 to 17.62 percent in 1997.
As a response to the public’s demand for change in the way juvenile offenders are handled, the State of Montana uses the balanced and restorative justice model for administering juvenile justice. As part of this greater focus on individual accountability, the Montana Conservation Corps (MCC),47 which operates a full-time conservation corps program for youth across the State, was selected to implement two programs specifically targeting young people involved in the juvenile justice system. The programs enable juvenile offenders to give back both to their victims and to their communities while developing work and life skills. MCC operates a program for committed youth at a State juvenile correctional facility and a community-based program in four regions of the State. To help fund the programs, MCC has leveraged Federal AmeriCorps and Summer Youth Employment and Training Program (SYETP) resources.
MCC’s CorpsLINK program offers juvenile offenders living in the community an opportunity to make
restitution through community service activities and provides them with mentoring services. The court-ordered community service is completed during afternoons and on weekends. AmeriCorps volunteers set up and supervise the service projects, which include building trails, clearing public parks, or painting community buildings, and serve as mentors to the participants. Key to the programs are their crew-based structure, through which participants develop teamwork and communication skills, and the involvement of participants in meaningful and tangible community service projects.
Four full-time MCC members are assigned to each CorpsLINK program. In addition, every full-time
MCC member is expected to mentor at least one CorpsLINK participant during his or her term of
service. This mentoring of participants by full-time MCC members is a significant factor in the program’s success. The bonds that are formed while completing a project and participating in activities away from the project site provide the basis for trusting relationships.
The program also arranges for mediation between CorpsLINK participants and their victims. This
generally occurs prior to youth participation in the program and is conducted by professionals or volunteers from local dispute resolution programs.
CorpsLINK participants also may join an MCC full-time crew during the summer through SYETP.
Once participants have satisfied their court-ordered service commitment, they may enroll in the JTPA-funded program, provided they meet income eligibility criteria.
MCC also operates the Montana Youth Alternative program at a State juvenile correctional facility. This program engages participants in an intensive 6-week experiential program in the backcountry, followed by participation in crew-based community service projects for the duration of their commitments.
Recent approaches to system change, including identification of locally responsive, portable skills standards and experimentation with new service delivery systems, offer opportunities for court-involved youth to participate in the labor market. Opportunities to prepare for the workforce can be provided through a variety of routes and can begin at the first involvement
with the juvenile justice system, regardless of the offender’s age. One approach is to link restitution with community service activities that build both hard and soft work skills. Developing partnerships with local businesses to provide employment both inside and outside a youth residential facility helps youth connect other education and treatment activities with
workplace requirements. Involvement by employers and business organizations on a regular basis develops an advocacy base and a cadre of interested role models. Linking academic learning with workplace practices, integrating apprenticeship and other employer-supported training models, and developing youth entrepreneurship activities provide court-involved youth with opportunities for career development while building worker skills and creating an attachment to the labor market. As practitioners and policymakers strive to improve individual programs that serve juveniles, they also need to devote attention to strengthening the systems that support those programs and determine their failure or success in truly responding to the needs of young people. Collaboration of the key youth-serving agencies is critical to the success of efforts to help youth prepare for employment, obtain that employment, and successfully stay on the job.
42 Sherman et al., 1997.
43 D. Gruber, Creative resource development, in A Generation of Challenge: Pathways to Success for Urban Youth, Monograph 97–03, Baltimore, MD: Sar Levitan Center for Social Policy Studies,
1997, pp. 87–118.
44 For more information about YES, contact OJJDP at the U.S. Department of Justice. See appendix H for contact information.
45 Outcome information was provided by the National Youth Employment Coalition, Washington, DC: PEP Net–99, 1999. See appendix H for contact information.
46 For additional information, contact the Ohio Department of Youth Services. See appendix H for contact information.
47 For more information, contact MCC. See appendix H for contact information.
41 G. Romero and D. Brown, State Progress in Addressing Youth Violence, Washington, DC: National Governors’ Association, Center for Policy Research, 1995.