Blog: Community Engagement

On June 1, 2016, our Reclaiming Futures national executive director Evan Elkin spoke at Red Emma's in Baltimore for Open Society Institute-Baltimore's second event in their "Talking About Addiction" series. Elkin was accompanied on the panel by Dr. Hoover Adger from Johns Hopkins Children's Center and by Carin Callan Miller, who founded Save Our Children Peer Family Support. The conversation was moderated by Scott Nolen, director of OSI-Baltimore's Drug Addiction Treatment Program. A full room of community members joined them for the evening, including families affected by adolescent addiction.

Youth, Addiction and the Juvenile Justice System

Whereas the first "Talking About Addiction" event explored alternative law enforcement approaches to addiction, this event focused on youth, addiction, and the juvenile justice system. Despite public acknowledgment of the failures of the "War on Drugs," and an increased understanding of addiction as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice issue, OSI-Baltimore recognizes that research and policy around adolescent addiction are slow to reach the mainstream. Indeed, during the discussion, some attendees expressed frustration with how long addiction treatment reform is taking; OSI moderator Nolen suggested reassurance that the addiction paradigm is finally shifting.

April in Dayton, Ohio generally means the winter weather is starting to break. Snow showers and subzero temperatures are replaced with rain showers and flowers. For some neighborhoods in Dayton, Ohio the break in the weather brings light to a major issue. The issue of illegal dumping is highly visible once the piles of snow have melted away. In some instances, neighborhoods have been left with tons of trash and debris.  For several blocks certain alleyways can be found with couches, mattress, appliances and construction waste.

On April 1, 2015 Montgomery County Juvenile Court hosted its fourth annual community cleanup in the Fairview Neighborhood. This was a community effort, with multiple partners coming together to improve the appearance of one of our city’s neighborhoods.

An estimated one in five adolescents worldwide struggle with a mental illness such as depression, a panic disorder, an anxiety disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder. In the United States only half of those individuals obtain the help they need, yet in developing nations, far fewer are lucky enough to receive the appropriate care. In this TED video, Vikram Patel explains an approach to end the worldwide lack of treatment by training community members to care for others, similar to the Reclaiming Futures mission of community based care to help young people overcome drugs, alcohol and crime. Watch the video in full below:
 

This Fall, the Adler School Institute on Public Safety and Social Justice (IPSSJ) and its partner organizations with the Cook County Juvenile Justice Task Force published a concept paper (PDF download) outlining community-based, trauma-informed, restorative solutions to youth crime and conflict in Cook County, Illinois. The report provides guiding thoughts on how the juvenile justice system can better support young people while making communities safer. It also recommends alternatives to existing centralized juvenile detention approaches in Cook County.
The Adler School IPSSJ paper reports that the majority of juvenile justice dollars are spent in only a few zip codes. By using community approaches to juvenile justice, the Adler School argues that the county could get a much higher return on investment, along with lowering the risk currently posed by teen crime. Via the report:

...if the county does not reinvest these dollars in the communities of greatest need, it is asking residents of those areas to assume substantial additional risks to their safety without funding the types of programs and initiatives that could effectively manage those risks. This is a very real danger. As we all labor to design the best possible future for juvenile justice in Cook County, we would like your help keeping the above ideas and concerns at the forefront of the process. We know fundamental change will take years to responsibly develop; yet the time to begin the work is now.

In honor of Recovery Month, I'm sharing the Road to Recovery's latest video on the importance of community-based organizations. Reclaiming Futures is a huge believer in connecting young people with long-term community supports so that teens don't find themselves in the same situations that got them in trouble. 

From the Road to Recovery:

Over in The Atlantic Cities, Richard R. Buery Jr. of the Children's Aid Society has a very compelling piece about the importance of community-based rehabilitation centers in working with troubled youth.  
He explains:

Engaging the local community is vital to the rehabilitation process. For young offenders, receiving supportive services in their home communities, where they can remain connected to families and local institutions, offers the most reliable path for ensuring that they do not grow up to become lifelong criminals. For most children convicted of minor infractions, effective services can be provided while they live at home, avoiding the costs and negative impact of institutionalization. Yet for the past few decades we have failed troubled youth--the vast majority of them black and Latino (84 percent of all admissions in 2009) - by shipping them to juvenile detention facilities hundreds of miles away from home, often for minor infractions.
Cutting these children off from their communities threatens their often fragile family relationships. Worse, young people don't learn to become responsible adults at these facilities--on the contrary, they are often neglected and face abuse. And despite how ineffective and unsafe these facilities are, the city and state spend millions of dollars a year to keep them running. Compared to the alternative, the waste is astonishing. Holding a youth offender in a secure facility costs around $260,000 a year; alternative, community-based treatment programs can cost about $20,000 per child per year, and have better results.

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University‘s Public Policy Institute, in partnership with the Juvenile Law Center, has announced its inaugural Information Sharing Certificate Program. This program, supported with funding from the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change Initiative, is designed to enable leaders in the juvenile justice, child welfare, education, behavioral health and other child serving fields to overcome information sharing challenges that prevent the communication and coordination that is necessary to more fully serve youth known across multiple systems of care. Upon completion of the intensive three-day learning experience, participants apply the knowledge they gain through the development and implementation of a Capstone Project—an action agenda they undertake in their organization/community to initiate or enhance information sharing efforts. To accelerate these efforts, it is strongly encouraged that those interested in attending form a team from their jurisdiction to apply to the program.
Faculty for the program is comprised of information sharing, juvenile justice and child welfare subject matter experts from across the country who will deliver a curriculum designed to increase participants' ability to solve real-life problems when they return home. Thanks to the MacArthur Foundation, tuition subsidies are available for those with financial need.

Information Sharing Certificate Program
October 1-4, 2012
Washington, DC
Application Deadline: June 28, 2012

Youth behind bars often find the holidays to be an especially lonely time, as they are away from friends and family members. A non-profit in Washington, DC is collecting books to give to incarcerated teens in adult prisons.
Free Minds Book Club uses creative writing and books to help teens in the juvenile justice system turn their lives around.
Check out this clip on the book drive and one teen's success with the program:

• Webinar on Disproportionate Minority Contact
  The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center will host the webinar, “Disproportionate Minority Contact: Issues and Trends at the National, State, and Local Level,” on August 3, 2011 at 2 p.m. (EDT). The webinar will describe the issues that state and local communities face when trying to reduce disproportionate minority contact.  
• Department of Justice: Licensed Growers, Dispensers of Medical Marijuana Could Be Prosecuted
  A new policy memo issued by Deputy Attorney General James Cole says state law is no protection for growers and dispensers of medical marijuana. However, the Justice Department stands by its 2009 directive against investigating patients and caregivers in compliance with state law.