Focusing on Significant Issues for Reentry and Family Engagement

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Focusing on Significant Issues for Reentry and
Family Engagement Simon Gonsoulin, NDTAC and
Pat Frost, SDE, Nebraska
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Objectives of Session

• The group will explore common barriers or
  roadblocks experienced by youth attempting to
  reenter successfully school and the community at
  large after incarceration.  
• The participants will brainstorm ideas that N or
  D coordinators can put in place to strategically
  address these barriers with a focus on family
  engagement as a component of the reentry planning
  process.
• The group will engage in preliminary discussion
  focused on connecting the monitoring event to
  immediate and future technical assistance
  pertaining to reentry and family engagement.

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What Is Juvenile Justice Reentry?

• Reentry refers to the process and experience of
  reentering society after a term of incarceration
  (Youth Reentry Task Force, 2009).
• A coordinated set of activities for the youth,
  designed within an outcome-oriented process,
  which promotes successful movement from the
  community to a correctional program setting, and
  from a correctional program setting to
  postincarceration activities.
• This definition identifies three elements of
  successful transition
• 1. It is coordinated.
• 2. It is an outcome-oriented process.
• 3. It promotes successful movement between the
  facility and the community (Griller-Clark, NDTAC
  Transition Toolkit, 2008).

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Why Is Reentry Planning Important?

• National crime rates are higher and public safety
  is compromised because many youth exiting
  detention are not afforded necessary supportive
  services when reentering their communities.
• One study found that, within 12 months of their
  reentry to the community, only 30 of youth were
  involved in either school or work (Burllis,
  2002).
• In a recent study of homeless youth, between 10
  and 17 years of age, the Wilder Research Center
  found that 46 had been in a correctional
  facility of those, 44 exited into an unstable
  housing situation ( Owen, 2007).

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Why Is Reentry Planning Important?(continued)

• Many within the justice system, the human
  services system, and the community have come to
  recognize that returning young people to their
  communities with only marginal investments in
  their rehabilitation and little support for their
  positive integration into community life is a
  recipe for failure (Center for Law and Social
  Policy, 2006).
• Of youth released from foster care, group homes,
  or juvenile detention centers, 25 spent their
  first night either in a shelter or on the street
  (Clark, 1996).
• Youth who have been transferred to the adult
  system face additional reentry problems.
  Juveniles incarcerated in adult facilities are
  30 more likely to be rearrested than those
  retained in the JJ system, both sooner and for
  more serious offenses (Bishop, 1996).

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Why Have Reentry Planning, Funding, and Practices?

• Youth require planned supports to reintegrate
  into their families, schools, and communities.
• Youth require a Positive Youth Development Model
  of care.
• Effective reentry services reduce recidivism.
• Fostering improved family relationships and
  functioning, reintegration into school, and
  mastery of independent life skills, can help
  youth build resiliency and positive development
  to divert them from future delinquent and other
  problematic behaviors.

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Goal of Effective Reentry

• Typical goals for community-based reentry
  services include social integration into family
  and community systems of care, reduction in
  recidivism, housing stability, advancement in
  school, employment, and mastery of life skills.

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Principles and Promising Practices in Reentry
Services

• Prerelease planning
• Reentry services in the community where returning
  youth live
• Reentry services that proactively address
  developmental deficits
• Focus on permanent family/guardianship
  connections
• Recognition of diverse needs of returning youth
• Structured workforce preparation, employment, and
  school attendance
• Better use of leisure time

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Focus on Education and Employment

• Attendance at school is a strong protective
  factor against delinquency. Youth who attend
  school also are much less likely to commit crimes
  in the short term and long term also.
• More than one-half of the youth in detention
  have not completed grade 8, and two-thirds of
  those leaving formal custody do not return to
  school.
• Employment is another very strong predictor of
  criminal behavior. Individuals who have a job
  are less likely to commit crime (Uggen, 2003).
• Research consistently finds that recidivism often
  occurs just after release, sometimes within a few
  days.

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Why Youth Dont Make It With Our Current Efforts

• Youth are considered difficult to manage.
• Schools face too much pressure to excel through
  performance on standardized test scores.
• Schoolwork completed in detention/secure care is
  not counted by schools toward credit completion.
• Zero tolerance policies affect reentry youth.
• State and local legislation place reentry youth
  in alternative placements as a matter of standard
  practice.

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Recommendations Think Exit at Entry

• Records exchange is neededminimum number of
  days, standardized records, back-up/tickler
  system.
• Direct planning is done with facility, youth,
  family, and school (youths plan for personal
  future).
• Monitor each students progress in school
  community at 5, 10, 15, and 30 daysdont wait
  for 60 and 90 days out.
• Academic programs in facilities must reflect the
  public school curriculum, and a vocational
  program must extend beyond the work of the
  institution.
• Vocational classes should develop portfolios.

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Recommendations Think Exit at Entry
(continued)

• For academic classes, provide report cards and
  list academic achievements.
• Address mental health and substance abuse needs,
  if appropriate.
• Stay in touch with the probation officer about
  school-related successes and problems.
• Share information about skills learned and
  specialized treatment.
• Provide prerelease visits to community and school
  (passes and furloughs).
• Identify and provide aftercare/reentry services
  and support to help address family needs that
  will assist the youth in being successful in
  school and/or employment.

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Family Engagement, Nebraska Style 

• A guide to using Beyond the Bake Sale in
  school PowerPoint slides for future technical
  assistance
• Transitions for LifeA parent training institute
• Parent to Parent NetworkParents empowering
  parents, an advocacy initiative