Our Mission

To advance justice for and enhance the lives of children and youth through juvenile, child welfare, and related systems reform.

Our Vision

Through the work of CCYJ, more children and youth will be diverted from entering Washington’s juvenile justice system. Those children and youth who are involved in the juvenile justice, child welfare and related systems will maximize their potential to become more successful and productive members of their communities. They will have the support of integrated systems staffed by highly-skilled practitioners, utilizing evidence-based practices, in an environment of fair and unbiased decision making.

Our Strategy

Fair and Unbiased Decision-Making in the Legal System

Systems Reform

Education

Public Policy

Research and Publications

Evaluation

Our Key Initiatives

Project Partners

Child Welfare Resource Bank

From 1997 to 2007, various boards, commissions, and other entities issued over 2,000 recommendations for improving WA’s child welfare system.

In 2008, CCYJ developed a categorized, searchable database of those recommendations in order to identify and encourage action on the viable recommendations.

Overview

CCYJ will concentrate on recommended reforms in 4 categories to identify those reforms not yet fully implemented:• Adolescents• Court processes• Funding• Organization

The database is available online, by application, for research and policy review purposes.

Outcomes

Gates Foundation--Avanza

Avanza is a program for Latino youth, with the goals of:• Reducing disproportionate

educational outcomes• Reducing DMC JJ

contacts• Providing culturally

relevant services that address the particular strengths and needs of Latino youth

Involving a system-wide, community-based approach that develops a strength-based education/career plan, Avanza is a collaboration between Highline Public Schools, Puget Sound ESD, King County Superior Court and King County Work Training.

Overview

While enrolled, students failed fewer classes, earned more credits, and got better grades.

Sample achievements: • 100% committed no

juvenile offenses• 80% earned at least 2

high school credits• 57% advanced one

grade level Outcomes

Lawyers Fostering Independence

LFI recruits, trains, and deploys attorneys to provide pro bono civil legal services to youth aged 17 to 23 who have been in foster care, group care, or kinship care at some point since their 15th birthday.

Overview

LFI’s Program Coordinator --• Is forging new partnerships with community organizations that work with LFI’s target population• Is liaising with pro bono coordinators to manage referred cases• Conducts one-on-one intake and follow-up with every client

Outcomes

Lawyers Furthering Education

Students who are often truant from school are much more likely to drop out. By intervening early, LFE can resolve underlying issues so kids can become fully engaged in school.

With a contract from the Seattle School District, the program focuses on homeless and immigrant youth, who have higher truancy and dropout rates than other groups of students in the district. Overview

CCYJ has brought together an advisory committee - comprised of representatives from schools, juvenile justice groups, service providers, and law firms - to determine the details of the program.

LFE will recruit and train attorneys to provide legal counseling, referrals, and legal representation, as appropriate, to reduce barriers to school attendance. Attorneys will work with at-risk youth before they have serious truancy issues and once they have been sent to court.

Outcomes

Military Youth Roundtable

Research shows that military youth have up to twice the rate of mental health issues than other youth. They relocate frequently, change schools often, have absent parents, and experience the added stress today of having a parent at war– all posing risk factors similar to other youth who have increased potential for entering child welfare or juvenile justice systems.

Overview

The roundtables involve lawyers, service providers, policymakers, military and civilian decision-makers and others in informal brainstorming sessions –• To exchange information

about services, programming ideas, and otherwise expand the overall network of advocates

• To gather data regarding the prevalence of youth in military families who enter the child welfare and juvenile justice systems

• To identify how roundtable actors can use their influence to improve public policy, court practices, education/awareness/ prevention campaigns, cross-training, and legal representation

Outcomes

Models for Change

The Goal of MfC – create a new wave of juvenile justice reform by producing system-wide change in multiple states that others will learn from and emulate.

In June 2006, the MacArthur Foundation selected CCYJ to serve as the lead entity in directing its Models for Change Juvenile Justice Reform project in WA.

Overview

8 Principles• Fundamental

fairness• Recognition of

juvenile-adult differences

• Recognition of individual differences

• Recognition of potential

• Safety• Personal

responsibility• Community

responsibility• System

responsibility

Framework

MfC – Washington

Targeted Areas of Improvement• Alternatives to Formal

Processing and Secure Confinement (AFPSC)

• Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC)

• Mental Health

Strategic Opportunities for Technical Assistance• Indigent

Representation• Multi-System

Collaboration and Coordination (MSCC)

Work Plan

Policy Reform Strategies• Revise Becca Funding

Scheme• Ensure mutual

accountability• Improve pre-court

intervention policy and practice

• Improve school-based reengagement policy and practice

• Expanding Evidence-Based, Promising-Practice Resources for Families and Youth in Conflict

AFPSC

MfC – Washington

Policy Reform Strategies• Remediate DMC• Expand use of

suspended commitment alternatives

• Develop a DMC database

• Partnering with other entities to address DMC

DMC

Policy Reform Strategies• Implement self-

incrimination protections

• Upstream MH interventions as an alternative to the mental health disposition alternative (MHDA)

• Leverage Medicaid funding

• Ensure that juvenile detention facilities utilize a validated mental health screening instrument

Mental Health

MfC – Washington

Policy Reform Strategies• Developing/Piloting

Model Juvenile Indigent Defense Practices

• Exploring Juvenile Indigent Defense Funding Alternatives

Indigent Rep.

Policy Reform Strategies• Developing/

Implementing a Plan for Cross-System Information Sharing

• Identifying Reforms• Facilitating Blended

Funding• Developing Model

Practice Standards/MOUs for Case Coordination/ Collaboration

• Creating a cross-system database, standardized reports

MSCC

Philanthropist’s Forum

CCYJ convened the Forum in 2009, bringing to the table individual funders and major foundations, who invest in juvenile justice and/or child welfare system reform.

By mid-2010, the gatherings proved so beneficial that the group agreed to provide funding to CCYJ to hire a staff person to more intensely guide and formally organize the forum’s efforts.

Overview

The collaboration enables partners to examine promising projects that should be piloted and research that should be advanced.

The forum allows funders to better align and leverage their work, and to create relationships and partnerships that help them make more informed decisions, and to consider joint funding opportunities.

Outcomes

Project Respect

The issue of the sexual exploitation and trafficking of youth and children is a statewide problem. A 2008 Seattle Human Services Department Report stated that as many as 500 children – some as young as 11 – are being forced into prostitution in King County at any given time.

More than 75% of these youth have been victims of abuse. These youth need resources and compassion, not the further victimization of arrest, incarceration and a return to the streets where they once again will be forced into commercial sex acts for the monetary gain of abusive pimps.

Overview

Project Respect will lead the development of the Washington State DMST Response Protocol – a research-based, collaborative initiative to implement a statewide model victim-centered response protocol for law enforcement, the courts, victims’ advocacy organizations and other first responders.

Next Steps--• Development of the

protocol • Implementation of the

protocol • Training• Monitoring/evaluation Outcomes

Council On Gangs

The Council, comprised of high level decision-makers including mayors, police chiefs, and school superintendents, is designed to break down the systemic and procedural barriers that dissuade cross-system collaboration, coordination, and integration.

Overview

The planning process began with a community assessment designed to identify the nature and scope of gang activity and youth violence in King Co.’s suburban communities.

The assessment--• Puts the Council in

good stead for future attainment of federal funds

• Will provide the data necessary to effectively allocate resources and reduce overlap, waste, and missed opportunities Outcomes