What's the JJDPA or Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA)?
The JJDPA is perhaps best known for its “core requirements.”
First passed in 1974, the JJDPA has for more than 30 years served as the principal vehicle for federal, state and local government to work in partnership on delinquency prevention and improvements in juvenile justice. The federal office devoted to juvenile justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), at U.S. Department of Justice, was established by the JJDPA.
Charles M. Blow, in an Op-Ed in the January 9th New York Times, reported some scary data from the annual Monitoring the Future study:
...[T]he percentage of both black and white 12th graders who confessed to using cocaine in the past 30 days has essentially stayed flat since 2001. The major difference is that white usage outweighs black usage 4 to 1.
He goes on to add:
UPDATE: Youth Today's John Kelly gives the highlights of the audiocast I linked to below. (Scroll down to the fourth item on his list.)
On January 9th, at 5:18 AM (I assume that's Eastern Time), you can tune into a live audiocast of an interview with Shay Bilchik. The interview is provided by the Campaign for Youth Justice.
Listen in on January 15, 2009 to an audio webcast on what bad economic news might mean for reforming children's health care -- including Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) funds.
Even though it was a holiday week, I ran across a number of interesting stories and resources.
[This is the second part of a two-part post. See first post here.]
3. Be prepared for the unexpected. You can't plan for every contingency, but plan for the worst, so you'll be as prepared as you can be.
- What happens if someone you were counting on to testify comes down with pneumonia?
- What if one of your partners adds an extra speaker you didn't plan for?
- What if several legislators on the committee you were scheduled to testify before are unable to attend the hearing, due to family emergencies and other crucial commitments?
(This is the first part of a two-part post. Read the second post here.)
Last week, Laura Nissen of Reclaiming Futures and other experts on drug and alcohol treatment were invited to testify at a hearing by the Oregon State Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Legislators rarely get the chance to learn about adolescent substance abuse in depth, and this was a great opportunity to help them understand the problem -- and possible solutions.
You can do this, too. Here's how organizers made it happen in Oregon:
Every now and then, I'll post links to intriguing and important stories you might have missed. Here's a few I've collected in the past few days:
One of the most important things anyone who cares about juvenile justice and teen substance use can do is to talk to their representatives about why treatment matters.
That's exactly what a group of policy experts and youth advocates did yesterday, when they testified before the Oregon State Senate
This Thursday, two youth advocates will talk about the importance of treatment and services for teens.
No big deal -- except they'll be talking to the Oregon Senate Senate Health and Human Services Committee. The youth will testify as part of a scheduled hearing about adolescent substance abuse treatment statewide.
It all started last January, when Reclaiming Futures co-sponsored a state summit on the subject. Our co-sponsors
.jpg)
Over at Youth Today's the excellent blog, I ran across a link to a video of a "town hall meeting" on national juvenile justice policy sponsored by the American Bar Association and held at Georgetown Law School. I recommend that you check out Youth Today's summary of the event for highlights and policy recommendations for the Obama administration before heading over to see the video, which is nearly three hours long -- but the snippets I've seen so far made me want to watch the whole thing.
It's election day, and there's a lot of talk about long lines, along with a few reports of electronic voting machine glitches and questions about provisional ballots. In fact, Ohio's broad use of provisional ballots could prove pivotal, according to a New York Times article last week.
It's not likely that Obama or McCain will order a full-scale troop withdrawal in the war on drugs any time soon. However, both candidates have reason to know we're losing the war, according to a recent piece by Joe Conason in Salon.
Pages
Just before the holidays, The New York Times published an interesting article by Benedict Carey on the state of alcohol and drug treatment, called "