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1 | Please select all that apply in describing your county: | Please describe successful prevention and assessment process in your jurisdiction. Highlight those pieces that you think are working well. | Please describe at least one service you've used or seen used to keep juvenile justice youth from entering out-of-home care. If you know of or have used, more than one service, please include those as well. | Do you feel prevention services for juvenile justice youth are working well in your county or judicial district? | Please describe the reason for your answer for the previous question regarding whether prevention services are working in your county or judicial district. | Name one thing that is working with in practice with juvenile justice youth who are eligible for prevention services through child welfare. This includes all juvenile justice involved youth who are eligible for referral or involvement in child welfare services to prevent out of home placement. | What relationships and resources have your county or judicial district developed to strengthen prevention practices? | Describe at least one barrier you have faced while providing access to prevention services to juvenile justice youth and how you overcame it. | What ideas do you have to improve practice in preventing out-of-home placement for juvenile justice youth? | Anything else you want to add regarding prevention services in your district and juvenile justice youth? | ||||||||||||||
2 | Urban;Large;Metro | Pretrial case management includes risk and needs assessment for moderate and high risk youth. This is helpful to lead the case plan. | Respite care - often youth and families need a 'break' while they work on issues. Wraparound supports that include meeting basic needs. | No | I am thinking prevention from juvenile justice system involvement. There are not enough services or neighborhood supports available to support families who are busy and stressed. Basic needs are constant stressors. | Sometimes MST, FFT, family therapy, co-parenting counseling, individual therapy, and mentoring services help youth and family and prevent further system penetration. There is a need for more/something else for youth for whom these services are not effective. Also, there is a need for more providers and additional funding for these services. | Interagency relationships are improved through participation in JSPC and DCP. More could be done. | Financial; generally speaking, partner agencies work together to ensure services are funded and services continue/follow the youth. Agencies tend to run close to the line in terms of budget for services and sometimes turn down requests. | Can we recruit community members to increase foster care and respite care available for youth with state level charges? This is a challenging population, and it would require ongoing training and support for the community members. Possibly also pay the community members to do this; Denver is an expensive city and people are busy and this is challenging work. | |||||||||||||||
3 | Large | The 17th works together as a group and has regular communication. | Synergy MST is a good services that helps address substance and mental health. | No | There needs to be more options for youth. | Pre-trial/ probation and the department working together to find appropriate services | CYCD just developed a new pre-trail service and partners with additional service providers. | The court ordering youth into out of home placement when that is not the recommendation of the department. Trying to continue to educate everyone and provide alternatives to out of home placement. | Education of all parties in court and for the department to have a valid voice in court. | Additional services for the youth that they can access without a case with the department. | ||||||||||||||
4 | Urban;Rural;Large;Medium | Crossover Youth Practice Model; CMP; PA3 | Crossover Youth Practice Model | Yes | I think that they can be improved upon, such as moving the target population upstream but the Crossover team has worked hard for years to work preventative | Reduction of duplication of services and blending and braiding of funding for services | DHS and JJ as well as Schools and MH | insurance; providing assistance to families to navigate and learn the language for insurance | Get involved pre-filing! The original Crossover model occurs in conjunction with the D.A.'s to develop treatment plans and put services in place in lieu of filing! | |||||||||||||||
5 | Large | CYPM Process (FACES meetings), creation of the Alternatives to Detention initiative through Douglas County CMP, blending and braiding of funding with DHS, CMP, Probation and CYDC for community based services. | Therapeutic In-home services (i.e. MST and FFT) | Yes | I believe that we have processes in place in Douglas County to identify youth and families who we can provide services to, in order to prevent further system penetration. One such process is our CYPM meetings and our CMP Strategic Planning Family Meetings. As a county we are regularly discussing how we can identify these families earlier and how we can provide services in the least restrictive way possible. | Joint Assessments between JJ team and CW team. Blending and braiding of funding for community based services. | Relationships with our community providers who can provide evidence based practices to these families. Inclusion of community providers in CYPM meetings, when appropriate so that services can begin ASAP. Regular meetings of our CYPM subcommittee under the CMP to discuss process improvements. | Identifying new entry points for families to be able to provide true prevention services. TBD. | Continuing to develop services in our community as an alternative to detention. Providing temporary respite services while a case plan can be developed to assist the family in maintaining the youth at home. | n/a | ||||||||||||||
6 | Metro | We are able to keep children home with safety plans which allows us to prevent a removal. | n/a | Yes | Yes as we are having less removals | we have a prevention unit | the family does not have a support netweok | n/a | ||||||||||||||||
7 | Urban;Large;Metro | I think the referral process from Red Team to prevention is working well. | Creative Solutions with Colorado Access and program called Momentum | Yes | I actually have little interaction with youth in this area, so my limited experience has been good. | See above | See above | Juveniles with significant mental health, harming behaviors less resources. | trying to identify new resources that people may not be aware of. IN CW we tend to use same providers over and over exhausting efforts early on. | No | ||||||||||||||
8 | Metro | Successful prevention and assessment helps to identify the areas of concern or worry for the families we work with. Once we, together with the families, identify those areas, successful prevention and assessment provides support surrounding those areas in hopes that the risk to the children can be mitigated. The hope is that families receive the services and supports they need to make changes to their lives and help to keep their children safe at all times. | Yes | Prevention services exist I think it's the fact that they are optional that makes it difficult to see the level of engagement we would like to see. | Focus on independent living | Guadalupe Project, Save our youth Mentoring, DAYS | Transportation. Generally overcame by bus tickets and passes provided by the Department. | More mentorship | ||||||||||||||||
9 | Large;Metro | In-home services, such as, therapy or life skills services | Yes | Denver County has a prevention team that reaches out to families that have had referral that don't rise to the level of having an assessment. | ||||||||||||||||||||
10 | Metro | Probation/CYDC and DHS work well together in the 17th and do our best to work as a team for youth. In addtion, our CYDC services are doing a great job and as a jurisdiction, we are always looking at new ideas, additional resources and services. | Pre trial supervision and services/ and in-home services focused on family and not just the youth. | No | Overall we work well together, however, we have too many youth failing at pre-trial or probation due to non-compiance, and that is when the court and those involved look to out of home placement as the answer. I do not believe we have enough programs specifically for this population outside of therapuetic interventions. Everyone seems to focus and insist of an in-home therapy for a youth simply because that is the only thing available. Not all kids/families need therapy! | Child welfare has more therapeutic services available to youth through Medicaid and through block funding. | Teamwork with child welfare, probation and our CYDC. | One barrier: therapeutic services are available and accessible to pretty much any youth/family - however, many of these youth need less therapy and more in re: to behavior modification - for which we do not have many options. We really need to find good services for behavior mod. In addition, much of the time the courts are ordering youth into out of home placement although this is not recommended by the child welfare worker. This is occuring due to several reasons. One is for "more supervision" of the youth. Another reason is due to community risk (although placements are in the community). Also, with the continued reduction in detention beds there is a push to get youth out of detention and since many feel that child welfare is an extension of detention - kids are being ordered into placement. By simple design, the state has put DYS and child welfare at odds with each other and child welfare continues to be utilized to help reduce the population in the detention centers. At some point due to Families First, this will backfire and cause a lot of issues for both systems. | More behavior modification type of services for youth, We need restorative justice. We need more mentors for delinquent youth - mentors that share similar cultures/experiences as our clients. We need gang intervention services whatever that might look like. We need meaningful/structured community service opportunities for youth which may include their strengths (ie: for our creative kids: maybe painting trash bins for a company or artwork on the side of a building - not tagging!: or for or animal lovers - more structured time at an animal shelter)...Kids need a better and more healthy connection to the community. | If the court is going to continue to allow youth who have charges such as attempted murder and agg. juv. offender back into the community on PR bonds, as a community - there needs to be higher expectations of supervision and more meaningful interventions offered to these youth. | ||||||||||||||
11 | Urban;Metro | The prevention team, intake and ongoing workers collaborating early in the assessment phase when we know a case will be opened. | No | Youth need exposure to environments outside of their own, activities that involve physical activity versus talk therapy and they system doesn't connect families to this type of support. | lack of community resources that actually work | I think developing a program that allows youth to experience different things such as having youth participate in youth trips abroad where they they are able to experience cultures outside of their own and develop a different sense of gratitude. For example, there are organizations that take youth to places like Africa and asia and they meet other youth in those nation . Experiences like this are preventative and open up youth's world view. | ||||||||||||||||||
12 | Urban | I would say crisis intake is dong a great job especially during this pandemic with continuing to provide services to family and getting creative working with family's to assess safety of children and prevent further abuse/neglect in our communities. | Court ordered assessments of the family where a intake CW is assigned to get involved to determine what services that can be provided to family to prevent out of home placement. | Yes | I think the court ordered assessment are working as we are able to provide services to family through a assessment and provide services to prevent out of home placements in most instances. | The involvement of intake with ongoing workers who are working with the family of the youth who is involved in the juvenile justice center are working together to support the family. | Relationship and coordination of services through various departments through DDHS. | The only barriers that I have experienced is coordination of services with collaterals and the issue of arguing over who is going to pay for the services. | I would like to see all professionals involved be transparent with family and all other professionals involved with the family. Instead of arguing over who will pay for services focus on the family and meeting their needs and meeting them where they are in their life. | N0 | ||||||||||||||
13 | Urban;Large | I do not feel our current assessment process provides an accurate depiction of the concerns and needs for youth nor does it highlight strengths well. | Engage, ROC Program, MST Services, Mentoring Programs, Individual Therapy, | Yes | I would say somewhat working. Many of the probation clients have already attempted or been involved in several services by the time they get sentenced to us and many of the charges are becoming more severe so the numbers have seemed to decrease some in probation sentences but the types of juveniles have become higher risks and services seem limited in the ability to help. | I feel the collaboration with professionals is very cohesive and easy to get information to and from one another to work together in finding positive solutions for justice involved youth. | Engage - collaboration of Probation/DHS/Paths/CYDC and any other service involved with the juveniles. | Lag time in getting services to youth when in high need of intervention. | More resources for recreation/pro-social activities. We need more incentives to help provide juveniles an outlet from negative peer and family influences. | Probation is also receiving a large amount of youth over the age of 18 with juvenile cases. These youth are also limited in resources and support and it would be helpful to have more wrap around services for youth until they are 20-21 years of age. | ||||||||||||||
14 | Large | We have implemented a CMP called Engage to utilize as a preventative tool/staffing as a client centered, MDT approach to establishing goals early on in supervision and providing support to the youth and families. We are also working on better communication across all partnerships around past services, response to supervision, in hopes to meet the youth where they are at. | We have a 3yr pilot with a Multi-Systemic Therapy agency (Savio) that will service all probation youth and any other youth involved in child welfare, delinquency or as a preventative measure, referred through the schools as an added support for the families, prior to entering into the judicial system. This is a great option for families with relationship struggles, setting boundaries, substance abuse, accountability and added support to help them in getting off probation. | No | By the time the youth is sentenced to probation, they most likely have already been through pre-trial supervision. Not all youth is appropriate for our Engage and most who have current human services involvement are already participating in FTMs to assist the family. Our referrals are low and we don't have the opportunity to staff most youth. Capturing these kids at the school level prior to any involvement with DHS or probation would be the most beneficial time if looking at prevention. | The family seems to appreciate the option and support. | We have an in house resource (ROC program) for kids who are expelled from school and need more support around therapeutic interventions and mentoring. Our department is looking at a mentoring service right now in hopes to have further community outreach and support and guidance for our youth who are high risk | Follow through and buy in from the youth and family. Trying to relay a positive message around prevention and the benefits, rather than it seeming like a negative thing. | More resources all around. With probation youth we are lacking gang prevention services and mentoring. The families can benefit from further support/parenting classes on how to support a teenage youth and coping skills. After school opportunities for prosocial activities would be helpful. | Not all crossover youth automatically qualify for services or are a higher risk necessarily. Preventative practices should be meant for all youth, not a certain population, case by case basis. If a youth is deemed a crossover, the prevention should happen with the agency that first has contact with the family around any concerns or issues (DHS, School) By the time they are on probation, most of them have already had prior issues at school, diversion or DHS involvement. | ||||||||||||||
15 | Rural;Large | high fidelity WRAP around and Youth and Family Connections, but we cannot get funds to support it. | High fidelity WRAP around at Youth and Family Connections | No | DHS won't/can't fund WRAP, even though DHS benefits the most from the service. | Our prevention program only works with kids who don't have a juvenile justice adjudication. Our prevention program is fantastic but not for crossover youth. | DHS seems to be going it alone. Prevention used to be a collaboration with other agencies and now it's all in house. | prevention services are not available to juvenile justice youth, only Youth in Conflict or traditional child welfare. | Full funding for prevention services and DHS funding WRAP entirely. | DHS gets stuck with large bills for preadjudicated youth often, so I understand why they are hesitant to get involved. If we want kids to stay out of DHS congregate care, Public Defenders must dispo cases earlier rather than leaving kids in placement for months on end while they continue the case over and over. | ||||||||||||||
16 | Rural;Large | We were using Facilcase for evaluation. This was eliminated June 2020. This was an effective way to collect data which was done through OMNI | Restorative Justice, WRAP around services, youth leadership programs, mentoring programs | No | There have tremendous budget cuts to our county which has eliminated or decreased services for prevention. | Restorative Justice, WRAP, therapy/counseling | funding and how we are striving to overcome it is by contracting grant writers. Another barrier is knowing what resources are available. In the past we have collaborated with other agencies in bringing to town a universal training that can benefit many like a social emotional training. | All schools to have implemented restorative practices. | ||||||||||||||||
17 | Rural;Small;Tourist | LPYS has focused our efforts on programming that allows us to reach more youth with the services they need to make positive changes in their lives. Additionally, we have worked with our juvenile justice partners to transform the entire continuum to be more proactive, providing earlier-intervention and support to low-level juvenile offenders, saving tax payers thousands of dollars, and keeping a great number of our youth out of the juvenile justice system. | Youth are referred to the LPYS Diversion Program by the courts, law enforcement, and the school resource officers in lieu of having criminal charges filed against them for felony, misdemeanor, and petty offenses. With the support of grantors, area school districts, and local government, LPYS began to accept "parent referrals" to our Diversion program in fy19, which required additional capacity to support the increase in youth served through this program. The Radical Possibilities (RP) Mentoring Program serves youth in grades 6-9 who are facing adverse life conditions that affect their well-being and ability to engage positively in their lives. RP provides intensive one-on-one mentoring as well as a weekly group dinner that is focused on social-emotional learning and positive youth development. Mentors and mentees meet individually at least once per week and engage in activities such as hiking, rock climbing, and doing artwork. RP utilizes a strengths-based approach and mentors receive comprehensive training and supervision to assist them in integrating skilled support for their mentees into their activities. The group dinners provide an inclusive environment in which youth and mentors plan and cook meals, share personal stories, and participate in group activities that teach and model skillful interpersonal relating. In fy19, RP served 12 youth with 9 mentors. Of these youth, none were expelled or had charges filed while enrolled. Additionally, 33% of the youth showed an increase in school attendance, 8% showed a reduction in school-based behavioral incidents, and 17% showed a reduction in suspensions (when compared with previous school year). And finally, youth reported feeling an increased sense of connection and belonging from participating in RP. LPYS coordinates with a number of community conferencing specialists who provide mediation to victims of juvenile crime in our community. In fy18, LPYS began offering ReThinking Substances (RTS), a restorative intervention for youth, and their supportive adults, involved in first-time, petty level marijuana and/or alcohol offenses. LPYS also works with school district personnel in the county to support school-based restorative practices and programs. School-based restorative justice builds a stronger school community through providing kids with deeper connections and a sense of belonging among their peers, teachers, and families. Additionally, these practices provide schools with an alternative method to traditional discipline where suspension and expulsion would more commonly be used. The Communities-in-Schools Partnership Program (CISP) provides school-based wraparound, early intervention, and prevention responses to youth facing chronic absenteeism, are habitually truant, have marginalized identities, and are encountering mental/behavioral health struggles. CISP focuses on youth that face adverse factors to overall wellness, and are identified through routine meetings with school administrators, counselors, and social workers. In fy20, the Diversion Program supported a total of 59 new referrals, 2 of which were made voluntarily by parents. Our school-based restorative practices program reached a total of 368 youth in 9 schools. The majority of youth served in schools were referred to a restorative process because they were at-risk of suspension, expulsion and truancy, or were expelled. Additionally, 232 students in 11 schools participated in long-term, in-school behavioral health services (CISP), and 14 students participated in our mentoring program. | Yes | Recent local juvenile justice data collected begins to show positives trends including increased community safety, lower court case loads, fewer youth in detention, and fewer youth sentenced to state juvenile facilities. LPYS student services data matches this pattern, indicating increases in the number of students served through prevention and early-intervention programming, truancy and court diversion programs, and collaborative management services from 24 total students in 2012, to approximately 700 youth reached in 2019-20. | Integrated Services and Support Team Meetings (ISSTs) through our Collaborative Management Program (CMP), specifically Judicial ISSTs; and Dept. of Human Services Family Engagement Meetings. | La Plata County Collaborative Management Program - CISP, RP, and SBRP (LPYS programs mentioned above) are considered prevention programs of our CMP. | Collaborative case planning, and coordination of services - CMP! | Continued coordination of care and sharing of resources, particularly in small, rural communities. | NA | ||||||||||||||
18 | Rural;Medium;Tourist | No | ||||||||||||||||||||||
19 | Urban;Rural;Large;Metro | Not familiar with this side of things. | In home therapy. | No | Within the DYS system, it's not trauma informed. Kids acting out as a trauma response are often punished rather than helping them work through that trauma in the moment. The system is very punitive. Not empowering or confidence building in healthy ways. | Therapy in the home with whole family, and any support people they wanted involved, allowed for conversations that were more grounded and directed. | For families that have given up on a child, they may feel alone and need like a hotline number to call whenever they don't know how to handle an issue. | |||||||||||||||||
20 | Rural;Medium | Family and Community Meetings when 1st made aware of an issue. Work closely with Community Partners. Our Family Resource Center in conjunction with COACT provides High Fidelity Wrap Around Services. We have an active IOG and ISST Team. Morgan County is a pilot county for Kinship Navigation to give supports to kin providers. We have been able to over Parents with Love and Limits through CORE funding until this fiscal year. We have a Cross Over Youth program, it has lost some steam with turn over in staff in several agencies but we are working on getting it back in full strength. | Family and Community Team Meetings; Kinship Navigation; Parents with Love and Limits; High Fidelity Wrap | Yes | Most of the time if Probation and\or the courts involve us early we are able to keep most youth in our community or at least with kin providers somewhere. | The members of our IOG ( HB 1451 program) are pretty invested. The Judged most involved with Cross Over Youth has retired so we are trying to get the new ones more involved. | Substance Abuse Treatment for youth is still a challenge, unfortunately the most involved youth end up in residential placements. | Local Intensive Substance Abuse and Mental Health Treatment. | ||||||||||||||||
21 | Large;Metro | unknown | electronic GPS monitoring, sometimes pretrial services | Yes | Judicial officers do try to help youth be successful, however youth do not cooperate all the time. | collaboration and family engagement meetings | Family Strong | having to wait to schedule meetings, not enough meeting availability | none | no thank you | ||||||||||||||
22 | Urban;Large | TASC worked well when it was in place. Drug court is also effective for adults. | MST in home services, trauma focused therapies, animal assisted therapies | No | Prevention services are hard to access at times and it is difficult to find culturally appropriate services for youth in minority populations | Home based services with intensive family therapy supporting individual treatment services. | unknown | Service providers often don't do the life skills and family work necessary to help stabilize the child's environment. Families tend to need comprehensive assistance, including hard services, parenting, trauma work for adults in the home, comprehensive mental health services that are needed even though the initiating incident involved something else like substance abuse, etc. | We need to build the child's informal supports up more, including services for adult family members and engagement of extended relatives. | It would be helpful to expand contracts to include services from agencies that focus on providing assistance for minority populations. Hard services are also important, as families who struggle with basic needs are unlikely to engage in the work needed to facilitate behavioral changes and mental/emotional well being needed to prevent out of home placement for juveniles. | ||||||||||||||
23 | Large | Denver Human Services - Child Welfare has a risk and safety assessment to help identify family strengths and barriers. Similar assessments should be created for each youth involved with courts/delinquencies | Mentoring programs | Yes | Denver County is complying with least restrictive settings and also has a prevention program | Chaffee Program and Prevention Program | Unknown what specific resources are used | On-going caseworkers are assigned non court cases which has increased their caseload creating overwhelming stressors to high caseloads. Non-court cases should be assigned to the Prevention Program. | The Department should contract with mentoring programs and all delinquent juveniles should be automatically assigned a mentor. | the department has complied with regulations by working toward getting youth out of group homes and into more stable families | ||||||||||||||
24 | Urban;Large;Metro | Family therapy and in-home services are typically utilized in an attempt to keep the child in the least restrictive environment. Synergy MST has proven to be very effective in many cases! | Synergy MST | Yes | I think typically the in-home services offered can be very effective, ultimately it is up to the youth and the family to change their dynamics and behaviors. | Pre-trial services or SB-94 services are typically very effective in better understanding youth who struggle with high risk run behaviors. | increase in attempts to utilize in-home services, as opposed to out of home placement options. | one barrier faced is lack of youth engagement in services. This can be overcome by continuously setting expectations of engagement for the youth and family and explaining potential consequences | increase in diversity of in-home service options. (different types of therapy and treatment) | no | ||||||||||||||
25 | Urban;Large;Metro | We have prevention caseworkers - I don't know how they measure success? Our assessment process is typical to other counties. I feel like our assessments pendulum back and forth from keeping kids in homes that are not especially safe to pulling kids out when they could stay. | Intensive in-home services with the ability to ask the caregiver to randomly drop a UA while at the visit are great. | No | I feel like once a child gets to the point of entering the juvenile justice system, we have already failed them years earlier. Solutions need to include early childhood intervention to prevent the trauma in the first place. | I don't know. | I don't know. | lot's of barriers, not a lot of great solutions because the system is complicated. Poverty, early childhood trauma, persistent substance abuse have root causes that don't lend themselves to a quick fix. Focusing on making the whole family stronger is a good idea - the two generation models seem promising. | Programs that focus on two generations - programs that offer consistent providers - not rotating caseworkers because people are inherently relational. Invest in workers so that they can build healthy relationships with clients | I don't know a lot about them. Seems like prevention services need to start long before a youth is in the juvenile justice system ---- when they are young children in at-risk homes. | ||||||||||||||
26 | Metro | Denver County Child Welfare has a Prevention Team that works hands on with referrals that do not rise to the level of abuse or neglect. It's been a game changer for the department. It allows the department to work with those family providing educational advocacy, mental health resources, basic needs assistance and any other resources families need to mitigate other referrals coming into the department, as well as lowering the risk of abuse and neglect in the future. | Denver County Prevention Team Case Worker, Savio, Soar, MHCD, Friends of Man, DHS Human Services, CASA, Diversion Program | No | Prevention Services for Juveniles within this system need to collaborate more with their Community Partners. There are so many organizations in Denver that provide good and helpful services to our youth. It's about doing some research and finding out about what's out there. Why do youth within this system get so many chances to violate court orders before real consequences are handed out? | Your case is only as strong as the worker. A juvenile's success within this system starts with the worker. How well the worker connects with the youth and their family is huge. Does the worker truly understand "crisis doesn't have a time restriction." | Denver Human Services Child Welfare Prevention Team | When working with youth within this system there's a whole lot of Indians and not enough chiefs; therefore I bypass all Indians and go directly to the chief when I come across barriers when working with youth involved in this system | More positive collaboration with community providers, positive family engagement realize one service doesn't fit all. Quit handing out idle threats to repeat offenders who continue to violate and cut off ankle monitors. Follow through with "real" consequences. | No thank you | ||||||||||||||
27 | Urban | I work in Prevention Services for Denver Human Services. I feel that we are often able to help families access mental health services to help address issues when kids are struggling so that kids can remain in their homes. Oftentimes, it's a matter of engaging the parents or caregivers, listening to their story of how things have changed over time, giving support for their role as parents who are really trying to help their child, knowing what resources are responsive and effective and connecting families with those resources, helping families problem-solve when there are difficulties or miscommunication, and advocating for kids and families to help them get the help they need. | Savio provides great services that help prevent out-of-home care, and they work quickly and effectively at helping kids return home from Savio's residential program. The crisis line is great at helping deescalate situations in the "heat of the moment" and prevent kids from going to the hospital and possibly out-of-home placement. Denver Health and Children's Hospital are huge agencies that have many effective programs and treatment options that help kids get the services they need while staying home. The schools often have supportive counselors who will give extra attention to kids who are struggling so that the school environment is supportive and not punitive, which helps kids stay busy and out of out-of-home placement. In Denver, GRID has been great at working with gang-related kids so that they can safely remain in the community. It seems like a lot of other agencies have in-home therapy programs that support kids staying home; however, we often don't see any evaluation of the outcomes of these programs. | Yes | I feel that the GAL's and court professionals in Denver have shared values about kids doing better when they can remain home safely. Denver courts seem more likely to give kids more chances for minor slip-ups on probation/pre-trial release than other counties. Given adolescent brain development, I think that is a good thing, and it helps prevent out-of-home placement. Denver courts can be very supportive of kids and help celebrate and encourage kids when they do well. | In Denver Human Services, we have several very knowledgeable administrators who can help advocate for kids and families when difficult situations arise, such as when a kid has severe mental health needs but is denied for certain services. | In addition to carrying prevention cases, in Prevention Services, we have rotating assignments to visit community resources, build connections with these resources, and share with our team. The Prevention Unit has a partnership with Denver Health - the Nurse Family Partnership, which helps families get in-home medical education and follow up. In youth services, I used to participate in DCP (Denver Collaborative Partnership) meetings at the Gilliam. They were awesome meetings with participants representing many different systems: DPS, DHS, MHCD, etc. At the meetings, the professionals were able to help identify and often approve services to help kids return home. I haven't participated in a DCP for over a year so am unaware of the current status. | There seem to be two barriers that often come up when working with struggling youth: Medicaid denial for services and parents or caregivers who hit a "point of no return" with a kid when they are too emotionally, mentally and/or physically exhausted to have the kid remain home. With Medicaid denials, we are often able to help caregivers file an appeal or to help them understand the need for a less restrictive treatment options. For caregivers who are "burned out", I typically try to be as patient and supportive as possible and continually talk with them about youth brain development and how much kids can change over time. I often help identify some form of respite for the caregiver and talk with them about self-care. Oftentimes, I am able to use my experience of working with struggling youth to help the parent/caregiver understand that no place is better for a kid than with family who love them despite all the "stupid" things the kids may be doing. | I think it would be good to build on the formal and informal partnerships between systems and to support and encourage existing partnerships. | No. Thank you for the opportunity to be heard! | ||||||||||||||
28 | Urban;Large;Metro | Family Strong, ARCH/DCP | Family Strong, family finders | No | kids keep running from home and placement so services cannot be utilized properly | multi disciplinary meeting/staffing like ARCH/DCP and SART, Denver has good communication between DHS and pretrial service and probation | children running from home/placement, try to place the youth out of the area they are familiar with | increased accountability for the youths from the courts and better communication between the courts and its partners | ||||||||||||||||
29 | Urban;Rural;Medium;Metro | I find that the more intensive, and involved teams, assist in better prevention and assessment. Getting kids services sooner, rather than after involvement in higher level of crimes. I have seen a large number of our kids recidivste due to returning to the home perhaps too soon, and without enough family work having been completed. Having family impact is the most important, as these kids are remaining/returning to the environment they were seeing issues in. | Intensive family services | No | I do not feel enough services are in place to assist the family and community impact | I am not sure, as we see kids when they have crossed this boundary | Trying to increase services and partnerships | Youth being placed back in the home prior to having the support needed in the home setting | Change within the family unit. | I hope we can get more prevention services out there! | ||||||||||||||
30 | Large;Metro | Wraparound Services provided through Aspen Pointe, Family Stabilization, MST | Yes | I think that if the court/professionals get services referred to the community where there are sustainable resources in place prior to getting DHS involvement, the services are effective in managing the youth to keep them from getting more enmeshed in the system. | Nothing. Child welfare is not an effective intervention and at times, it almost increases the likelihood of further involvement. | Best Practices Court | The time that it takes for youth to be connected to community resources when they become involved with the judicial system is too long. | Improving the referrals to community agencies in order to decrease the time it takes for services to get involved. Less child welfare involvement. Quicker dockets to hold kids accountable and assess their progress with the services they were referred to quicker. Kids should be referred to services to address what brought them into the court system initially at advisement. If they are charged with a crime, something went wrong. | ||||||||||||||||
31 | suburban | CANS - Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths assessment | High Fidelity Wraparound, b/c it's family-centered and strengths-based | Yes | We have positive prevention outcomes relative to the State average. | Proactive pro-social activities that are based outdoors (like Learning to Sail, or hiking type things), which they can do with peers. It's best when they can also repeat the activity on their own, for free, as they're more likely to keep involved that way. | We have lots of pro-social partnerships, and youth respond well to these types of support. | Budgets and releases-of-info as well as liability issues can be big barriers. | Continue to provide opportunities for youth to build positive hobbies and supportive communities outside the home. | Thanks for your work and focus on this highly vulnerable population. | ||||||||||||||
32 | Urban;Large;Metro | partnership with community agencies and Medicaid providers to offer services to keep youth safely in their homes while keeping the community safe. Move from non-sustainable funding sources to utilizing grant funded, Medicaid and community programs for sustainability. | Family Strong, MST, FFT, Medicaid individual and family therapy, Medicaid intensive in home programs like Tennyson Center, Denver Children's Home, Devereaux, etc., Fostering Great Ideas program, other mentor programs, prosocial activities. Griffith Centers - Truancy Program and medicaid funded mentor program. | No | I believe that Human Services has great partnerships with agencies/service providers. I do feel that there are far too many referrals by probation/courts for DHS involvement without linking families directly with sustainable mental health/mentoring programs and that there is a push for out of home placement when lower level supports have not been tried or exhausted. Probation/pre-trial does have access to the same resources as DHS and most are funded through Medicaid. | Many services available to support youth in home or least restrictive placements. | Utilization of the Denver Collaborative Partnership program and Family Strong to try to prevent entry into multiple systems. | Need for Probation and other community partners and Human Services to contract with same providers and to know of same community providers. Created a shared provider group. | Create a list/resource guide for probation/DCP of as many community resources/Medicaid providers so that they can make the referrals to these service providers early on in their involvement with the family/youth, not at the time that they are requesting investigation from Human Services for out of home placement. When exploring services at the time to request a youth go into Out of home placement, it is many times too late. This should happen at the time the youth enters pretrial/probation. | |||||||||||||||
33 | Rural;Tourist | Use of Diversion and really working with the youth to prevent recidivism, collaborative work with families in the community through CTC, CMP and SOC efforts. | Wraparound | Yes | We have very low rates of out of home placement for children, often because they are far away and services know to adapt and come up with creative solutions because they believe out of home placement is simply not an option. | Identifying those youth and communicating with child welfare. They're usually on everyone's radar. | Collaborative Management Program and it's IOG | Funding, usually have to share funding, blending and braiding several resources | Start early! Easily accessible early childhood programs and services for at-risk families and children. | No | ||||||||||||||
34 | Rural;Large | Restorative justice juvenile diversion is working well to address root cause needs of youth, reduce recidivism and build strong community relationships for families in need of support. The online confidential conferences with youth are going smoothly and reducing the strain of travel for youth and parents in our program. | RJ juvenile diversion which includes case management, connecting youth to services and others in the district. | No | There is no district-wide agreement about equitable processes nor is there effective coordination from the DA's office. The DA's office is filing on youth before diverting them which keeps youth system involved longer and puts them at further risk of collateral consequences and future incarceration as research shows. Cases should be diverted to community-based RJ programs as early in the situation as possible to allow the best outcomes. Pre-file cases get diverted and then an automated message is sent to the community-based RJ program from the CYDC system however there isn't sufficient contact information available for the RJ program to successfully reach the potential participant. The RJ program emphasizes accountability and would prefer the referring agent give the potential participant information about the RJ program which states that they have a certain number of days to contact the RJ program and schedule a first meeting. | Youth need access to internet and often don't have it at home. They also need computers to better communicate with program facilitators. | Allow parents and youth to work with RJ programs before getting them involved with CPS. Conflict resolution and high-quality RJ facilitation are tools that would be helpful for these families. | |||||||||||||||||
35 | Urban | No | Victims continue to be left out of the equation; youth continue to be given chance after chance and have given no opportunity outside the chaos of the home, community, or school to find themselves and develop a sense of who they can be within a safe and providing environment. | Providing the right intervention rather than the least restrictive | ||||||||||||||||||||
36 | Urban | Family engagement, group therapy, strong and supportive strength based milieu | MST, Wraparound, Circle of Parents, Parenting classes, family therapy | No | I struggle to answer this question as we see youth often after they have gotten into trouble. I think more needs to be done early on - in elementary school years | Social Emotional Learning Specialists in the Jeffco schools | unknown - but Strengthening Families is an excellent start, Also we have a continuum of care at our agency from prevention to early intervention to treatment. | Access to funding, transportation, basic needs come first | FAMILY ENGAGEMENT EARLY is the key | no | ||||||||||||||
37 | Urban;Rural;Large | KEEP TEEN///Virtual Residential | No | Services are available but there is not willingness from all parties to go outside ot traditional interventions like placement for containment. | Juvenile Assessment Center/Probtaion/Court Best Team/ | Unwillingness of the treatment team to try them as they require more confort with both community risk as well as risk to the youth. | Placement as a last resort instead of the 1st action. | |||||||||||||||||
38 | Rural | We refer juveniles to The Center for Restorative Programs before there is a case filed on the juvenile. There they can learn how to repair harm to the victim or community and understand what they have done is wrong. | Through the courts, juveniles have been sent to the wrap around program through Senate Bill 94. | Yes | There is a noticeable decrease in recidivism with the juveniles that have gone through the Restorative Justice program in our judicial district. | We have a good working relationship with the non profit program that we send the juveniles to for Restorative Justice. | The biggest problem is law enforcement not knowing that this program is an option. The turn over of officers and deputies is pretty high in our rural area. Our non-profit works on updating the law enforcement agencies about the program. Recently, I have had an increase of direct juvenile referrals from law enforcement. | We are struggling to fund our program which is through grants. Most of the grants we were applying for were recently cut because of COVID19. | ||||||||||||||||
39 | Urban;Medium | Utilizing Risk/Need assessments and targeting interventions accordingly. There are plenty of resources available in the community. | Neurofeedback, family respite options, Parents Who Support Parents, YFC Wrap Around services, MST, FFT, EHM | Yes | I have yet to see an increase in the number of probation cases or increase in the severity of crime being committed by youth in our community. Success rates of juveniles on probation are currently at 74%. | Increased support network and payment of needed services. | Continued working relationships with DHS and treatment providers. | Utilizing EHM and GPS more frequently as an alternative to fewer placement options. | More community based respite options, educational resources for parents in parenting and substance use, more options for youth to gather for pro-social activities (art, music, sports, etc.), curriculum based on emotion awareness and management for youth and their families | I would like to see YFC partner with MADD to provide a location for the services MADD is willing to offer for our youth and parents at no cost. I also struggle identifying the true purpose of involving DHS when they seem to have no more resources/ideas/plans than we utilize in probation now that we are moving away from placement and detention. | ||||||||||||||
40 | Rural | Utilization of restorative justice practices for low level offenders. | Yes | |||||||||||||||||||||
41 | Medium;Metro | Using CANS as assessment tool for CW/JJ youth consistently, which takes into account Caregiver Needs and Strengths as well as youth's. We have a strong, common philosophy amongst partners and have build a solid continuum of care, focusing on how to move to more prevention and early identification of needs to lessen the numbers of high risk, high acuity youth. | High Fidelity Wraparound, MST, trauma-specific services, focus on EBP services, FFT, TF-CBT, AF-CBT, etc.. | Yes | By using validated assessments and looking at the whole family, we are able to match the right level of services for youth that start to touch some of our systems early. We stress not putting low-risk youth on Probation and instead targeting the right dosage and targeted services (lessening the focus on supervision) for Diversion level youth, and have a separate process and services continuum for Truancy youth so that they aren't sucked into the JJ system. | We allow JJ youth full access to our Core Services if it is identified in their CANS assessment that one of those services will best meet their needs, especially if they are Crossover Youth, previous CW youth, or similar trauma or family trauma/issues. This is why our blended/braided funding strategy works so well. | Our system leaders have created and maintained an incredibly strong shared philosophy and vision regarding children and youth in our community. They rely heavily on data-driven decision-making and investment into services that are validated. The shared risk and shared resources approach has opened up far more opportunities for our community to build a strong infrastructure and services continuum. | The funding and eligibility is inflexible from the top down. If there is an emphasis on always "targeting the highest risk youth" we will never prevent youth from becoming high risk, we will always be intervening too late. That makes no sense. An intentional effort has to be made to prevent and intervene earlier, to actually prevent more high risk youth. Funding for JJ youth from Truancy/Diversion/MTR/CYDC/etc. should be allocated using a thoughtful, equitable funding formula and the JD can move funds to each area accordingly. | More in-home, family-based interventions that are EBP's, especially HiFi Wrap development. More MOR/RED awareness. | Integrate racial equity awareness, responsiveness and tools in all of our discussions, decisions and practices. | ||||||||||||||
42 | Rural;Small;Tourist;fragmented service system | Mountain Youth Network; JCMH therapists in the schools | Rock House Youth Center | Yes | Mountain Youth Network and the Rock House do a good job as prevention services; early intervention likely happens at the Middle and High School and Carlson Elementary. Intervention with complex needs is where we don't do a good job. I have concerns with clinical services within the department of human services up here as confidentiality may not be maintained. | Perhaps programs above however, I'm not privy to actual examples of youth child welfare involved. | People know each other but seem not to function as an integrated system of care. | Plan to do team-based planning process with youth in foster home who wanted it; DHS became the barrier. We didn't overcome it but support to her foster mother preserved the placement. | We have no foster homes in my county thus all youth get placed out of county many in residential facilities. We need Family First Initiative implemented here and a community Task Force convened to implement it that can morph into a system of care. | I would like to see us implement the CANS Assessment across all child/youth serving agencies to utilize in planning. We also need a Behavioral Health Task Force to identify the strengths and needs in our current systems. | ||||||||||||||
43 | Rural;Medium | DHS recently hired an in home trauma informed treatment provider | in home crisis intervention | No | lack of services | |||||||||||||||||||
44 | Urban;Rural | Wrap, In home therapies, | Wrap, In home therapies | Yes | Its really a yes and no | Families that are ready and willing to put in the work | still working on it in some areas | Still working on it | Need more buy in from the families to the professionals throughout the process | Its a work in progress | ||||||||||||||
45 | Urban;Large | I don't usually see this side as I am appointed once the youth is charged. | MST, GRID, mentorship | No | I am seeing the increase of guns and violent crimes. | Strong role models and connection with the community | I am not sure | |||||||||||||||||
46 | Urban | NA | NA | Yes | Review of data | NA | Community led programs | NA | Ongoing facilitated project based programs | |||||||||||||||
47 | Urban;Rural;Large;Tourist | Expedited Individual Service and Support Teams (E-ISST) Screening Process for detention | E-ISST meetings with community collaboration that individualize plans to respond to Youth and Family needs for more appropriate planning. | No | Gaps in services to prevent youth involved in systems isn’t widely funded and they are slipping through the cracks. | We are expanding E-ISST services to non detained youth to aid in prevention. This process is widely supported with our courts, service providers, and systems including child welfare. | Responding to what youth and families tell us they need and providing unique plans that respond rather than giving them a plan that lacks their by-in and input. | We need more prevention plans with collaboration, funding, and referrals coming from Child welfare. | Families are asking for help and only receiving it when things get really desperate. Identify and respond sooner. | |||||||||||||||
48 | Urban;Rural;Large;Tourist | Expedited Individual Service and Support Teams (E-ISST) Screening Process for detention | E-ISST meetings with community collaboration that individualize plans to respond to Youth and Family needs for more appropriate planning. | No | Gaps in services to prevent youth involved in systems isn’t widely funded and they are slipping through the cracks. | We are expanding E-ISST services to non detained youth to aid in prevention. This process is widely supported with our courts, service providers, and systems including child welfare. | Responding to what youth and families tell us they need and providing unique plans that respond rather than giving them a plan that lacks their by-in and input. | We need more prevention plans with collaboration, funding, and referrals coming from Child welfare. | Families are asking for help and only receiving it when things get really desperate. Identify and respond sooner. | |||||||||||||||
49 | Rural;Small;Tourist | Alamosa & Saguache Counties have CMPs and utilize ISSTs. We also have Center for Restorative Programs (CRP) who do prevention work. CYDC works in conjunction with CRP to provide Rethinking Substances classes to prevent further substance charges. CRP also offers Victim/Offender Reconciliation and other programs. We utilize diversion in this district as well. | We utilize Family Preservation in homes. Our Crossover team working together has also prevented out of home placements. | Yes | We are seeing less juveniles with district court criminal charges. | Our crossover youth practice model | Our HB1451 Interagency Oversight Group (IOG) brings multiple agencies to the table. We continually share new and ongoing resources. Those relationships and partnerships have extended beyond the IOG with agencies working on other projects for juveniles. | We have 5 DHS agencies and 6 counties. The turnover, especially in Alamosa, is constant. Getting those new caseworkers trained and up to speed on crossover and other multi-agency groups is a challenge. Then once they are trained, they don't stay in the job very long. | We have limited resources here. It would be nice to have more in-home programs for families. | |||||||||||||||
50 | Rural;Small | ISST meetings to promote utilization of all available resources | Yes | All players of services are avialable to support youth. Jessica Oaks is so easy to work with! | ISST team meetings | We are here to support youth- Youth Access Center in Montrose CO | Partner with respite or RHY provider | Offer more Independent living Arrangements or host homes | ||||||||||||||||
51 | Urban;Medium | Crossover, CJRA - to the detention reports. | Mentoring, MST, Wraparound | Yes | We have seen a dramatic decrease in the number of youth we screen into detention and go to commitment. | I don't understand this question - I've read it a number of times. | DHS/Probation/CYDC/Courts | Diversion is not transparent. CMP does not collaborate with CYDC. We have not overcame either of these. What we have overcame is the 2 minute planning session 5 minutes before court. This was solved by the creation of the PART (Pueblo Adolescent Review Team) and then the Crossover Plan. | More involvement and emphasis on education. Online does not work for our juvenile justice involved youth yet our traditional schools don't want them and the youth can't complete online work so there is no learning going on. We need authentic traditional alternative schools for these youth. | The collaboration has improved immensely, and the families and youth voice are the loudest in our Crossover meetings. We still do not hold our schools accountable, nor do we meet these at risk youth where they are at regarding their education. Diversion picks and chooses who they deem eligible without cause. The 10th JD has done great work, but there is so much more to do. | ||||||||||||||
52 | Large;Metro | In home therapy with relative or other kin. | No | Court often won't explore this option or asks that we place while figuring this out. Some of the charges are too severe for this to be an option and still the court feels kids should be released. Sometimes the services are too slow to start. | Some of our collaborating agencies are on board with looking at services rather than placement. It's more about getting team players on board. | Slow to start, team players not on board, charges too severe | increase in pretrial services. Quicker service delivery. More front in services to keep children out of gangs and becoming involved in criminal behaviors in the first place. | |||||||||||||||||
53 | Rural;Medium | CJRA | mentoring | Yes | I think that the services are adequate, the hardest problem is getting youth to engage. | mentoring | A reliance on MST | a lack of follow through from DHS workers, still on going | n/a | n/a | ||||||||||||||
54 | Urban;Rural;Medium | harm reduction, reducing barriers for clients once off probation | MST, mentoring, | Yes | seeing more success than failure of clients/families | having meetings to determine family strengths and barriers to increase success. | PART/FEM meetings, also reducing time in detention with implementing services quicker | private insurance costs with MST, DHS was willing to absorb costs. | MST, holding more parents accountable with focusing on family needs and not having juvenile in probation system alone. | |||||||||||||||
55 | Rural;Large | Respite for current care providers whether that be the bio family, kinship, or foster homes. We see this as a consistent reason for disrupted placements. And to go along with this - appropriate services provided to family so they know how to handle the behaviors of the child/children before they give up. Tangible and helpful intensive services. | No | We have tons of kids that are going to group homes and residential just because their family cannot support their needs and even foster homes give up on them or their bio family is not available or healthy people either. Where are these kids to go? | Family participation. Especially if they have to go to a center or service and the service does not come to them. | Youth engagement and someone who is relatable to kids and not remind them of talk therapy. Get creative with the services so the kids are more likely to participate. | ||||||||||||||||||
56 | Large;Metro | Working with Denver Juvenile Justice and Denver Police Dept (prior to loosing funding) to serve the runaway youth population to prevent human trafficking and other risk factors. Using the Assesment Tool was helpful. | The whole missions of FamilyStrong is to prevent out of home placement and justice involvement. As a rapid responder, getting to partner with Savio House for families to access free services like: Multi-Systemic Therapy, Family Functioning Therapy, Community Based Mentorship, and Trauma Informed Therapy was very helpful and in my experience helped slow the rate of youth receiving out of home supports. | Yes | Yes, more so than other counties outside of Denver, but there is quite a ways to go especially as the funding for prevention programs like FamilyStrong went away there needs to be more programming focused on in home supports. To my knowledge Denver Juvenile Justice will continue to support runaway youth in various forms. | SavioHouse in home services free of cost, families never worry about leaving the comfort of their home and they are more comfortable! | Denver Collaborative Partnership, SOAR, Denver Juvenile Justice all coming together to ensure there is a team in support of youth and families especially to help create a trauma informed plan that will work. | Youth who do not have Medicaid at times would have less opportunity for certain services. | Meeting family where they are and modeling programs and approaches used by Rapid Responders in the FamilyStrong program. Having more programs like SavioHouse who know how to work with families and offering services they need and deserve to be a on a path to have a healthy and happy family. | More training around how White Supremacy in the Institutions of Child Welfare impacts why children--especially black and brown children and disproportionally being placed out of the home at higher rates than white youth. It is SOOO important to begin/continue talks around how the roots of racisms in the juvenile justice system are in itself the problem before we can begin to address solutions to these problems and have stronger prevention resources. | ||||||||||||||
57 | Small | Family interventions and support systems as a whole instead of just the individual. | Offering community engagement events and activities; open mic night, art classes, karaoke, paddle boarding, swimming, anything that engages other youth to share the same personal struggles in a positive and safe place for relatability and discussion. | Yes | I believe through our CASA program, we have seen an inprovment with all the youth we are working with consistantly. | Providing a CASA to a case helps to improve the support and resources available to a child or children involved in a case and offers a highly trained volunteer to provide an opinion of what is in the best interest of the family in court. | Youth Services Program through CASA, CASA advocates, Supervised exchanged parenting time facility and supervisiors, parenting classes, and financial support in some cases. | Funding | Continue to grow our programs with more help and financial support from community and government programs. | |||||||||||||||
58 | Urban;Large | Yes | Accountability and can be therapeutic. | Mentoring | Family Strong | Access to weapons | Emphasis on weapon possession. | |||||||||||||||||
59 | Urban;Rural;Large;Medium;Small;Metro | Our assessment process that we have for youth entering DYS seems to work well in determining need and level of care. | Yes | There are less youth entering DYS | intervention in the schools | After the first serious police contact a red flag is put up and certain low level services are implemented. | ||||||||||||||||||
60 | Urban | Since we see youth on the back end I don't see a lot of the prevention programs or how they work. | Denver Collaborative Partnership, Family Strong | Yes | Resistive family members, tying to build relationships with kids and families. | |||||||||||||||||||
61 | Rural;Large | ISST (intervention team meetings), Family Engagement Meetings, Intake Assessments for Housing, Intake Assessments for Case Management, Runaway and Homeless Youth Funding, Crisis Center in Montrose | Runaway and Homeless Youth Funding and the Crisis Center in Montrose | No | I think that we are doing what we can in a system that is overwhelmed. I also think we have a long way to go. I think that the kids that are in and out of the system are suffering because the system is not built for some of the greater needs that they have, and so they continue to do things that are not in the confines of what is expected of them. From outside the State DHS System, it feels like many of our teenagers are struggling because they are stuck in situations that we would typically remove older children from because they are old enough to have their own protective capacity. However, just because we don't have a place to "put them" doesn't mean that we should leave them in their current situation. Many of the youth that I work with are overlooked by the Child Welfare System, and are left in environments that lead them to chronic mental health needs and instability. | Continuing to have team meetings with the youth present so that they feel they can have a say in what their future looks like after their case closes. This has been really effective for some of our youth coming out of crisis situations and placements. | The service providers in Montrose continue to staff cases regularly, and attempt to have early intervention with new cases. | When we have dealt with kids that have had multiple system involvements- many times the kids are left in their environments and it seems that if there isn't a quick fix the system just starts a revolving door between Youth Corrections and the Crisis Center. | Having more mandated treatment options on a first offense. | |||||||||||||||
62 | Large | we use the cjra pre screen in our juvenile assessment center to triage by risk, the cjra full assessment for probation case plans, and the CANS in a structured decision making meeting to determine level of need and type of service for our highest risk youth | High Fidelity Wraparound, Community Review Team Meetings (ISST), Detention review meetings, MST, FFT, SAFY, Maplestar, and life support | Yes | We have a robust assessment process, an active collaboration that meets regularly, and rich continuum of in home services. | same as above | Collaborative boards, workgroups, meetings, oversight groups, and staffings. Frequent review of assessment data. | transportation - bus passes, hop skip ride | statewide adoption of the CANS-JJ, group assessment driven decision making, and an outcome management framework for using assessment data at the local level | |||||||||||||||
63 | Urban;Rural | DYS has an extensive assessment process so as to understand the needs of youth, getting them the most appropriate treatment, including family therapy if indicated, so they can move through the system as quickly as possible to either return home or emancipate | All of our youth are in out of home care. | I see the numbers of commitments have dropped, therefore, something is working. However, the types of offenses for commitments vary from County to county. We have countys that only commit for violent offenders and others that commit for Misdemeanor property crimes. | I am wondering if each county could compare notes on what type of offenders they are sentencing to DYS. I.E. counties submit to the State how many youth they sentenced to DYS and their type of offenses. Then that information is published in a document showing each judicial district. I could be eiither as an internal-only judicial and DYS has access, or, as a public document. Hence Judicial officers could see if they are in line with Family first and the JJ Reform bill | |||||||||||||||||||
64 | Rural;Small;Tourist | We use an evidence based survey that highlights strengths and shows areas of concerns. We met individually with parents and juvenile to discuss strengths/concerns. A plan/contract is recommended that addresses needs and strengths and a Case Manager is assigned to support the juvenile with the completion of the contract. We accept direct referrals from law enforcement as a way for us to engage juveniles and families without them having to go through the court process and potentially have a criminal record. Direct referrals are also accepted by schools, counselors, DHS, and parents. | Home Detention Contracts through CYDC and Service Assessment Meetings | Yes | We can provide many supportive services in-house to both the juvenile and parent which is similar to a WRAP program. We are able to utilize individual and family counseling, substance counseling/treatment, parent coaching, youth coaching, case management, life skills groups, community service projects, restorative justice, youth advocacy, school support and regular staffings. | Unsure how to answer, I have not seen much success. | Truancy team, Service Assessment Meetings, quarterly Juvenile Justice Meetings, quarterly SRO meetings, BATT, annual area counselors meet and greet, weekly high risk school staffings | Not having enough support services in our rural area, ie; substance prevention. We hired and trained staff to provide intensive outpaitent treatment internally. | Assessing all juveniles involved with the courts to identify needs and put services in place to address these needs. | I would say what has been most beneficial is the relationships/communication we have with other agencies and service providers. It is evident that we are all on the same page when it comes to identifying juveniles needs and working together to put successful and effective plans of support in place. | ||||||||||||||
65 | Urban;Rural;Large;Metro | Within the 18th Judicial District, specifically in Douglas County, professionals work in a collaborative approach to assess, support, and implement ongoing services to ensure families can be successful. The positive working relationships between CYDC, DHS, and GALs has successfully assisted families in navigating the juvenile justice system while ensuring the at risk youth can remain in the home while receiving treatment and services to mitigate their risk of recidivism. Without this collaborative approach, families would be pulled in different directions, and untimely lack the necessary skills to move forward in a positive and productive manner. | Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST/MST-SA), Functional Family Therapy (FFT), Electronic Home Monitoring (GPS/EHM), Individual Therapy, Animal Assisted Therapy, Metal Health or Psychological Evaluations, Preventative Aftercare, Mentors (to include Youth for Christ or Youth Advocate Programs. | Yes | Within the 18th judicial district, juvenile justice professionals are able to utilize the services listed above to prevent children from entering out-of-home care. The quality of services and limited wartimes to implement those services are strengths within the judicial district. We are often times able to attend a collaborative staffing between agencies (to include at least DHS/Pre-trial or Probation) and have services in the home within 14 working days (most times). | The short waitlists for families to receive most therapeutic services such as MST or FFT. When working with families who are in crisis, and youth who are on the cusp of out-of-home placement, time is of the essence. | Working diligently to have strong relationships between agencies in a collaborative approach is one of the most important aspects of creating a system that truly works. My case load is primarily in Douglas County, and it is not uncommon to meet with families with all professionals involved, to include a DHS case worker, Pre-Trial Release Case Manager, and Guardian ad Litem. This helps ensure all agencies are working towards a common goal and walking a family in the same direction. | Limited funding for services has been a barrier in the past. When one agency is simply unable to afford the cost of a preventative service, for example MST or FFT, it is not uncommon for professionals to reach out to other organizations to attempt to blend funding. For example, if a client needs an IOP level of care, such as MST, and insurance is unwilling to cover the service, DHS/CYDC may end up splitting the cost of the service together to assist the family. | Continuing to ensure preventative, scientifically proven, therapeutic modalities are available, affordable, and easily implemented to support families in crisis. | While preventative services are successful a large majority of the time, I feel it is important to continue to keep options available for the small percentage of youth who are not successful with these lower levels of care. Often times I hear DHS Caseworkers informing a family that their child needs to stay in the home, even when it may be unsafe, as there simply isn't another option. | ||||||||||||||
66 | Urban | In Douglas County, we utilize that Crossover Youth Practice Model which allows juvenile justice and human services to work alongside each other in assessing youth who cross between our systems. We work together towards a common case plan and implement services by blending funding. Working as a team in this fashion (typically also including the Guardian ad Litem) has not only helped youth access services quicker but also eases the process for youth and families by streamlining the many professionals involved within a family. The Juvenile Assessment Center's Community Assessment Program is also an important prevention service within our JD as they can assess youth and connect to services before reaching the juvenile justice system. | In Douglas County, it seems that different forms of family therapy, as well as parenting coaching/support can be an effective prevention service. | Yes | I would actually say yes and no. I think we typically do a good job of putting appropriate prevention services in place but sometimes it still does seem we are asked to jump through certain hoops to get particular services in place or that we need to start with less intensive services before moving to more intensive services, even when we feel strongly that the more intensive services are warranted. | Collaboration and strong relationships between CYDC, DHS, Probation, DA's and GAL's is imperative. In Douglas County, we've come a long way in building trust between these agencies over the years. | We have to be creative and willing to pay for more costly services up front. We need to provide respite options for families. We need to support the entire family. | I think that school is an integral part of identifying what youth could benefit from prevention services. Most of the youth in Douglas County who hit the juvenile justice system have had some type of issue within school prior to reaching our doors (truancy, suspensions, etc.) so I feel much of our effort should be focused on collaborating with schools. | ||||||||||||||||
67 | Urban;Rural;Large;Metro;Tourist | CMP in all four counties. Joint assessment, family meetings and blending/braiding funding | Mentoring | No | This is not true for all four counties in our district however there is work being done in each to provide better prevention services. We are moving towards in improving the prevention pieces. | Collaboration through CMP's | CMP and significant involvement from the bench. Trust continues to be built. | Transportation. We were able to provide bus passes for the family. | Building resources | None | ||||||||||||||
68 | Large | Taking a community approach which involves numerous groups and people working together in the best interest of the child and family. | The Matthews House and the Center. Also, the SRO group in the schools do a great job. | Yes | Larimer County is committed to youth and families | Working together as a group. | A mutual respect for each other. | The youth not always buying into the services being offered. | Hold parents/guardians responsible for their children and have them be expected to be part of the healing process from the start. | |||||||||||||||
69 | Rural;Metro | DYS has its own assessment process that continues to evolve and is extremely helpful in individualizing treatment for prevention with the youth and family | Yes | Youth who come to DYS have a history of intervention that attempted to help the youth from being placed in an out-of-home facility, and the youth report that the workers were supportive and helpful. | Trauma responsive approaches that have evolved over the past years have provided an approach to many of our youth from all angles of their need areas and have given allowance for them to safely address their victimization, which thereafter gives allowance for them to address additional parts of their treatment, and is used for prevention and intervention | trauma responsive practices, mental health interventions, family wrap around services | substance use interventions have become more limited and require more "hands in the pot" to encourage a preventive service for a youth, and makes it more challenging to help the youth through their addiction, relapse or otherwise. | increased level of approach where the system is supporting the family intervening with the youth, the system works with the family to identify where the family's needs and deficits are, and thereafter finding resources to fill these gaps, while equally supporting the youth's with the ultimate goal to meet the family and the youth at intersecting points where the family has the resources, skills and confidence, and the youth has the internal motivation, safety and hope to look towards the future with the support of their family. | ||||||||||||||||
70 | Urban;Rural | Our Crossover program, Pueblo Youth Services , Health Solutions Adolescent entity. | Yes | Our number of youth being detained has been lessening. | Relationships through our community boards which creates bridges of success for the community such as out relationship with Pueblo Police Department SRO's who work in our cities schools. | Acceptance by family and or parents to allow the youth to take part in programs. | A program that was set to start before COVID 19 was a Campus Connections. This program would be an asset to our youth. | We are anticipating the opening of Shiloh House which will offer a number of services for our youth. | ||||||||||||||||
71 | Urban;Rural;Large;Medium;Small;Metro | The JAC The Family Resource Pavilion Savio in home services | Family Resource Pavilion | Yes | I think this is a hard question to answer, because if prevention services are working we wouldn't necessarily see they youth enter into the judicial system. I believe the JAC does an incredible job of reaching families before they enter the system. | Rapid Response | We have started to utilize the Crossover process to help prevent youth from crossing from DHS to JJ or JJ to DHS | Availability and or funding We as an organization funded it | More options for respite care programs that help get services in place like the FRP - short 3 day programs that can give all the family members time to breath while services are being set up. | |||||||||||||||
72 | Metro | Multi-Disciplinary Team meetings | Denver Collaborate Partnership program | Yes | The right youth is now being placed in Division of Youth Services programs | Programs are being more solution focused | Collaborating different services/resources; Practicing continuum of care | Funding; Parents not involved or have the means to be involved | Flexibility - understanding the parents and their stressors that are impacting the youth | Not at this time | ||||||||||||||
73 | Urban;Rural;Large;Tourist | Boulder County’s robust Community Review Team process is the hub of prevention in our county. Families can access this process at any time and are able to engage with professionals across the partnership. Through this process, families gain insight into what is driving behavior and services that can target interventions to impact those behaviors. Our assessment process could be better across systems (State level). Each system (DYS, Judicial, Detention, HHS) still maintains a desire to have their own assessment, which creates more work and frustrations for families. The JJRC was recently tasked with streamlining assessments and failed to complete that task. | MST, FFT, CBT, Pathways, Individual Counseling (SA, SOMB, General), Medication Evaluations, Psych Testing, Organized Pro-Social Activities, UA Testing, and Equine Tx. | Yes | I would have preferred a “Yes/No� option for this question. I believe that Boulder County’s prevention services are better than most districts and we can do so much better at the same time. The IMPACT partnership in Boulder County should be a state and national model. Money diverted from savings by not committing clients is key to providing more services in the community. Many other districts struggle with prevention due to funding and there seems to be a gap in how this is accomplished. Providers are struggling to stay open and are constantly dealing with hardships due to funding. Great therapist and support workers often leave organizations that serve this population due to low pay. The key to making the Family First initiative a success is creating and maintaining a robust, well-funded system of care in communities. A system of care that incentivizes front line workers. These service providers are currently under funded and the work is difficult, which is a recipe for poor service delivery. | Pro Social Activities. | The IMPACT organization. | Transportation and service hours. Many of our clients are unable to meet 9-5 and are not able to physically get to preventative services. Respite care is also a barrier. Many families do not have a place for a juvenile to briefly go during a moment of crisis. | More funding and incentives for service providers. Creation of services that support adolescent healthy development (Mentor Programs, Pro-Social Services for difficult youngsters) | Family First and Juvenile Justice Reform only works if we double down on services in the community. The current funding and services in communities across Colorado is not enough to support families and juveniles. Money for excellent services should not be a barrier when it comes to our children, our communities, and our future. | ||||||||||||||
74 | Urban;Large;Metro | YASSI, DYS Clinical Assessment, Youth Portfolio, Wrap around services, Intensive Parole Supervision, GED prep tutoring, mentoring and interpreting services. | Mentoring | Yes | Client Manager lends to building strong family and client relationships that over time prevent recidivism. | Family advocate and mentoring. | Denver DCP, and other IOG initiatives. | Organize job services for youth, more well trained mentors, Advocates in the schools trained to engage youth with trauma. Strengthen police community out reach. This is best with very young children. I very much support the 2 gen approach, well trained family advocates with small budgets to to help with emergent needs for family's will go along way to prevent youth from out of home placements. | ||||||||||||||||
75 | Urban;Large | Team collaboration with agencies both in and outside the judicial district to prevent out of home placement or to come up with alternative placement options. | Global Youth Justice (not in practice in the metro area but is in municipal courts). Which most of the children facing placement have cases in District court not Municipal court. Global Youth Justice Champions a sustainable “Volunteer-Driven Reform Model� with replication and scale elements, to strengthen and improve Juvenile Justice and Youth Justice Systems. A record 1,800+ volunteer-driven and youth-led Youth Court, Teen Court, Student Court, Peer Court and Peer Jury diversion programs on 5-continents are involving historic numbers of youth volunteers, to include former youthful offenders, who have successfully completed one of these rapidly expanding, and affordable diversion programs. It's also a nonprofit. So Far this model is the only one that has the best research and the best favorable outcomes compared to others. | No | Because of the positions of some of the legal professionals that they hold in the courts (sentence to placement, or permission to get them out of placement, etc.). | The more team collaboration is best but when attorneys or GALs get involved this can be a nightmare for the child if they want them placed and not take the time to go through the steps of coming up with an alternate plan. This doesn't happen often in our County but when it does it is difficult to get cooperation from other professionals who hold this type of view on the child. | In our County there are some of the best resources utilized through collaboration to help keep kids out of Detention and to remain in the home. This is a team effort and a team decision which is great because once the decision has been made it is final and asked for approval from the court who 99% of the time does agree with the decision. That is something huge for the court and other courtroom professionals involved. | Other legal professionals. It is sad when a legal professionals wants a child to be locked in detention forever with out trying all resources to help prevent out of home placement or a higher level of placement. Which does happen but not often. Children are going to make mistakes and not all services fit for all children but letting us try every avenue is in the best interest of the child. | Why aren't the parents or adoptive parents held accountable for abandoning their child to Human Services? I've only seen this accountability occur in one county (Denver) who will hand a parent a child abuse ticket if they drop the child off at the front door for Human Services take the child. Which any parent who does this should be going through parenting classes to help understand their child not blaming the child and letting someone else take care of them. By giving them the ticket the parenting classes are mandatory through the criminal court as in civil court they can just refuse everything and rarely ever have consequences. This abandonment happens way to often with adoptive parents who are never held accountable for the child they adopted compared to biological parents. Children have asked why their parents can abandon them without consequences but they steal to survive and they get sent to a strangers home because their parents don't want them. | There needs to be a new approach because times have changed. Children have all the information at their fingertips on how to act, what to say in court and how to answer their questions. Think about it, they are advised by an adult that provides no critical thinking on their own. Think about if they had to answer to their peers in front of a courtroom full of people. Would their reactions, actions or statements be the same? Would they learn something about the law that they didn't read or memorize from the internet or been told to say by an adult? Children's ability to critically think has changed over the years with the abundance of information on the internet, just as learning in school has changed. Maybe we need a new concept to help the children learn from their choices? | ||||||||||||||
76 | Urban;Large;Metro | Collaborate as MDT | Department of Human Services involvement | No | Not enough education in the school system to talk about these issues. | More people involved that youth can connect to and have as a resource | Blue Bench | Lack of integration of prevention services. | More organized meetings for collaboration. | |||||||||||||||
77 | Urban;Rural;Large | Community Review Team Meetings | MST and MST-CM | Yes | The JD has expanded it book of services available to the clients and families. | Case Planning through the CRT process | City resources and pro-social activities | Not being able to place youth who are a serious threat to community safety | Provide more Intensive in home services that are more then 4 hours a week. | NO | ||||||||||||||
78 | Large | We collaborate with school districts and human services in an effort to prevent judicial involvement and mental health decompensation. | Behavioral Health Services, OBH funded programs like CYMHTA. | No | We could offer more pro-social activities and psychoeducaiton for families and youth. We could offer more restorative justice. We could offer more resources that help prevent and reduce legal involvement. | DHS prevention teams have strong partnerships with community resources and CMHC's. | Strong partnerships with DHS and CMHC's. Collaboration and joint training. | Communication. Developed process, procedure, shared training and regular meetings to keep accountability with our shared goals. | Integrate human services and behavioral health services. | |||||||||||||||
79 | Large | positive incentive/reinforcement options, activities to promote behavior change | BEST, EHM, individual and family therapy, regular communication between collaterals | No | Typically the youth are targeted at the period when concerning behaviors (MH, SA, etc) have been consistently occurring and interfering/disrupting many areas of their lives. | monthly staffings, CRT's, family reviews | I'm not clear on specific practices that have been developed | lack of communication on detention, UA's , school plans, etc. | more built in formats to collectively staff and process juveniles struggles and or supporting progress | |||||||||||||||
80 | Urban;Large | IMPACT Referral and interagency coordination | CANS assessments, Multiagency support, wraparound services, restorative justice | Yes | I think there are always growth areas for improvement and I think that 20th judicial is moving in a positive direction to keep kids home and supporting them at the lowest level of care needed. | Multiagency collaboration with Community Review Team Meetings | IMPACT Board | Amount of services available to meet the needs of high risk kids. | Continued collaboration | I would like to see the restorative justice program involve more community services to support families. | ||||||||||||||
81 | Rural;Medium;Small | I believe the professionals in our counties do care about youth and go above and beyond to provide services and flexibility to families. Professionals are generally open to collaboration and working toward an all-encompassing wrap-around support system for families. | Intensive family partnership meetings to facilitate the family in locating alternative placements in the community. | No | While the professionals are generally invested and compassionate, every juvenile is treated generally the same. They always recommend the same services and they are simply not effective. Ideally, we need to look for the reasons for the behavior and the needs the behavior fills and treat that. Restorative justice principles need to be brought back and community engagement for juvenile offenders needs to be revisited to make it effective and meaningful. | Services that focus on the entire family unit, not just the juvenile, are most effective. Engagement and buy-in from family is absolutely necessary for these services to be successful. We can't be afraid to try different treatment modalities or think outside of the box or change providers if one is not a good fit. Each family system is unique and should be treated that way. Families are not a one-size-fits-all structure. | We are working to strengthen the relationship between the courts, probation, and the department to better communicate and understand the needs of juveniles and families and to treat them with a team approach. We are looking for additional resources within the community and nearby communities to provide alternative treatment modalities and therapies that are more customized to improve outcomes and increase success. | Transportation can be a huge barrier to appropriate services in rural counties. We strive to build partnerships with local providers or those providers who are willing to come into the community versus requiring the family/ juvenile to go outside of the county for services. This is a continuing challenge. COVID has brought us the ability to better utilize technology to overcome this barrier and we are looking at ways to continue to effectively continue utilizing technology after the COVID restrictions are no longer in place. | We have to remember that most juveniles have trauma or other factors in their background that lead them to the juvenile justice system - it took them several years to get to us, we can't expect to "fix" everything in a year. We have to examine and treat the family system that led to where we are when possible. We need to learn to "meet juveniles where they are" and involve them in treatment decisions when possible. There will be more buy in when they feel more in control. | I do believe that most juvenile justice professionals are here for the right reasons. We need to find ways to educate society at large that these are not "bad kids." Yes, they make "bad choices." But, this is our best opportunity to break the cycle and lead them to positive outcomes as adults. If we can reach them as youth, we have the potential to change the course of their lives, if we can meet them on their terms and build meaningful, impactful relationships where they want to be successful and they can learn to be self-motivated and self-driven. | ||||||||||||||
82 | Large;Medium | assessment tools, flexibility in using webex, teams to meet with clients. | Colorado boys ranch mentoring program | Yes | dcworks is also working with juveniles securing employment | some clients live in rural areas and have to come into town to receive some of the services. | ||||||||||||||||||
83 | Urban;Rural;Large;Small | Strong collaboration | Team decision making, ensuring all parties are included in making decisions | Yes | Reduced number of youth who are committed, although that is not always the best considering the number of youth who are in the adult system | Unclear if this is offered to all youth in the juvenile justice system | Collaborative decision making | Lack of shared understanding about roles and mandates of each system involved with the youth | Right service at the right time that is delivered with precision and ability to quickly adjust to changes -- balanced with accountability, community safety and victim impact. | Awareness of geographical barriers to quality services | ||||||||||||||
84 | Urban;Large | DYS has a solid assessment process for committed youth | DYS clients are all placed out of home due to their court sentence | No | dangerous youth are remaining on the streets with minimal (if any) services and support and committing new crimes as they wait for sentencing on their original charge | no idea | no idea | N/A - I am a DYC Client Manager/Parole Officer; all of my clients are committed and serving a court sentence | easier access to earlier intervention | |||||||||||||||
85 | Urban;Rural;Large;Metro;Tourist | eisst/sb9a | gps, mentoring,MST | Yes | those I have seen through EISST, SB94 seem to have some success. I still believe there needs to be identification of need and services provided within the school system starting in elementary school. | mst, mentoring | eisst | appropriate expectations, expecting resistance, come along side youth and family. | NA | |||||||||||||||
86 | Urban;Large;Metro | individual therapy with at risk children | taking on more therapy cases | learning more about play therapy and therapy with children in order to better serve children and families. | ||||||||||||||||||||
87 | Urban;Large;Metro | Collaboration among various agencies has played an integral part in ensuring youth are served at the earliest point in the system. From initial assessment in PTR to rapid response interventions, clients and their families receive targeted interventions to help keep them safe and supported. ARCH staffings have worked well for clients needing additional supports beyond what Diversion can offer. Due to this process, services are added with several sets of eyes on a case with different perspectives. This leads to more comprehensive case planning for the family and includes their voice in their plan. | FFT, MST, MST-PSB, Parent Connect and Mentoring services. | Yes | Focus is on addressing risk and needs for the youth and the family. Services are more targeted to individual needs as opposed to implementing cookie cutter approaches. The collaborative has expanded to ensure the family voice is heard throughout the process, which is crucial to sustainable success. | At times, the juvenile justice system lacks the funding capacity to pay for intensive services. On those cases, funds are blended to start or continue services. | The Crossover Youth Practice Model was introduced years ago. The re-emergence of this has been in the works. | One of the biggest barriers is in knowing what prevention services are available through the child welfare system. Our office recently scheduled a training for staff with child welfare team members to learn more about the process and how to access services. I think on-going trainings would be helpful, especially in light of staff turnover rates. Either that, or incorporating manuals into the collaborative. This could be through the CYPM and other process manuals. | As stated before more cross-trainings and ability to refer clients to services at every point. No wrong door. | |||||||||||||||
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