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Coordinating Council

on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Report of Activities

and

Recommendations

to Congress

2001-2008

December 2008

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**Introduction**

More than 30 years ago, Congress enacted landmark legislation
establishing the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
(OJJDP) to support state and local efforts to prevent delinquency and
improve the juvenile justice system. The same 1974 Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act also established the **Coordinating
Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Council),** an
independent body within the executive branch of the federal government,
with a mandate to coordinate federal juvenile delinquency prevention
programs in cooperation with state and local juvenile justice programs,
federal programs and activities that detain or care for unaccompanied
juveniles, and federal programs relating to missing and exploited
children.

This report:

-   Describes the role of the Council, its statutory responsibilities,
    structure, current goals and approach to its work;

-   Reviews priorities and the framework that has guided the Council's
    recent work;

-   Provides a historical review of the Council's work, briefly touching
    on the highlights of the past 12 years of Council activities from
    1996 through 2008;

-   Details the achievements of the Council under this Administration;
    and,

-   Sets forth recommendations for future action.

**Coordinating Council Structure**

The Council has 18 members. Nine ex officio members represent the
following federal agencies---the Departments of Justice, Education,
Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland
Security/Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Labor; the Office of
National Drug Control Policy; the Corporation for National and Community
Service; and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
within the Department of Justice.

Up to nine members are juvenile justice practitioners who are appointed
by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Senate Majority
Leader, and the President of the United States to serve terms of one to
three years.

![](media/image1.wmf)The Attorney General serves as Chair and the
Administrator of OJJDP is the Vice Chair.

**The Council Supports the Juvenile Justice Mission**

OJJDP is the only federal agency *with* *the sole and* *specific*
mission to develop and disseminate knowledge about what works to prevent
juvenile delinquency and violence and to improve the effectiveness of
the juvenile justice system. Yet OJJDP's work is measurably enhanced
by---in fact, depends upon and requires---coordination with a host of
federal agencies, between researchers and practitioners at all levels of
government, and with the private sector. The key value of the
Coordinating Council is its mandate to examine the breadth of federal
research, funding, programs, and policy addressing issues affecting
at-risk youth across the domestic federal agencies.

The Council work thus aligns with and assists in achievement of OJJDP's
overall goal---to prevent and respond to juvenile delinquency and youth
victimization. That entails providing federal assistance to help states
and localities enact a gamut of strategies regarding mentoring, child
maltreatment, underage drinking, gang prevention and suppression,
treatment services for juveniles in correctional programs,
disproportionate minority contact, gender-specific programming, and
tribal youth concerns, among other issues. Importantly, because states
and localities can benefit by extending their resources with training,
technical assistance, and other guidance from OJJDP and other federal
agencies, the federal government can assist by easing access to the
myriad resources available.

**Council Goals**

To support OJJDP's mission and to -- ultimately -- improve the well
being of children and youth most at risk (youth in the justice and
dependency systems, tribal youth, and unaccompanied youth under
government care), the Council has adopted a corollary set of goals:

1\. Strengthen the practice of inter- and intra-agency youth-focused
collaboration

2\. Increase knowledge, dissemination, and use of evidence-based
programs in juvenile justice and prevention work

3\. Elevate the importance of a comprehensive juvenile justice agenda at
the federal level, and achieve an increased alignment of goals between
the juvenile justice and other systems at all levels of government.

**How the Council Fulfills its Mission**

The primary means by which the Council addresses these goals is through
examination and coordination of federal programs, policy, resources, and
activities directed at or which have potential for improving results for
justice-involved and at-risk children and youth, and by coordinating
resources and policies in support of children, youth, families and
communities to prevent delinquency and strengthen the juvenile justice
system.

The Council's quarterly meetings present opportunities for member
agencies to share information on programs and relevant research efforts,
and serve as a vehicle for constituencies that do not normally interact
to learn from each other and about relevant work. It provides a setting
within which Council member agencies may identify opportunities to
support a single program through joint funding or to collaborate in
particular communities to focus programs and resources to achieve
successful outcomes for juveniles.

The Council facilitates joint projects in a variety of ways including
interagency agreements; in-kind contributions of staff time and
resources, participation on longstanding and ad hoc inter-agency working
groups and partnerships; and coordinated and joint funding of
initiatives.

**Setting Priorities: Frameworks for Action**

The list of problems and needs and potential program focuses in juvenile
justice can be daunting. Over the last 10 years, two important,
well-researched documents have guided the Coordinating Council, OJJDP,
and their federal partners in developing programs---the findings of the
*Juvenile Justice Action Plan,* published in 1996 by the Council (and
reaffirmed in 1999, 2001 and 2006), and the work of the 2003 *White
House Task Force on Disadvantaged Youth.*

**A Continuing Council Achievement: Juvenile Justice Action Plan**

The Coordinating Council's *Juvenile Justice* *Action Plan* was
developed to provide a framework and strategy for action to address the
problem of juvenile violence facing communities, their youth, and the
juvenile justice system. It aligned with two principal components of
Juvenile Justice's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious Violent and
Chronic Offenders (SVCO)---prevention strategies and graduated sanctions
with a continuum of treatment alternatives. The Action Plan sets forth
eight areas of focus (refer to box on page 4) that remain relevant in
application to juvenile justice issues a decade later. The *Action Plan*
was reaffirmed by the Coordinating Council in 1999, and reaffirmed again
by the Council in 2001 and 2006. The document is a result of a year-long
effort of nearly 80 staff of multiple federal agencies, practitioner
members of the Council, and OJJDP staff.

**White House Task Force on Disadvantaged Youth**

In 2003, in response to the needs of disadvantaged children, the White
House assembled a Task Force to develop a comprehensive federal response
to the problems of youth failure with a focus on enhanced agency
accountability and effectiveness. In the Executive Summary of the final
report (issued in 2004), the Task Force noted that most children are
raised in an environment that includes love, a secure childhood,
adequate housing, access to health care, a good education, discipline of
character, a sense of personal responsibility, and a commitment to their
communities and their country, and they grow up to be healthy,
responsible, and productive citizens. For other children, this kind of
life does not exist; for these millions of disadvantaged youth, the
government plays a significant role in their lives. The President
appointed 11 federal agencies to the Task Force and asked them to review
all the existing federal programs that touched youth, and to make
recommendations as to where there could be enhanced agency
accountability and effectiveness.

In early 2005, the Coordinating Council adopted 13 of the White House
Task Force recommendations to further refine, guide, and focus the work
of the Council.

**Overview of Council Activities from 1996-2008**

**1996: Council Develops the Juvenile Justice Action Plan**

As noted above, the Juvenile Justice's Action Plan, a broad framework
for addressing delinquency, was published by the Council in March 1996,
following a year's concentrated team effort. The *results of the Action
Plan set the stage for the next decade of work* and led to several
efforts and activities of the Council, including the following:

-   Supported the Child Maltreatment Working Group, which developed a
    series of publications and hosted state forums on preventing and
    responding to abuse and neglect.

-   Created a Parenting Website with tools and resources to help
    parenting adults

-   Supported a lead paint and delinquency initiative; including a pilot
    demonstration at a Weed and Seed site

-   Supported a Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
    (OSERS/disabled children publication series)

-   Supported the Girls Initiative and the associated inter-agency Girls
    Study Group

**1999, 2001, 2006: Council Reaffirms Value of Action Plan**

At a series of planning retreats, the Council first identified steps to
update the Action Plan and reaffirmed the value of the eight Action Plan
objectives. As part of this work, the Council established eight working
groups similar to the earlier Child Maltreatment Working Group and began
development of a bulletin series. The Council proposed cross-agency
initiatives to strengthen technical assistance provided to the field.

**2003: Council Creates Five Subcommittees**

The Council created collaborative working groups across its member
agencies to advance work in specific arenas, establishing five
subcommittees to address Tribal Youth, Drugs and Alcohol, Family Health,
Education, and Technology, and to develop goals and proposed activities
and timelines.

**2004: Council Adopts 13 Recommendations from the *Final Report of the
White House Task Force for Disadvantaged Youth***

A description of some the collaborative interagency efforts that
resulted from the adoption of these recommendations can be found under
Council achievements.

**2004: Council Establishes the Council Planning Team**

This is an interagency team composed of federal staff and practitioner
members of the Council that helps to plan meetings and coordinate
Council activities.

**2004: Council Supports GIS Planning and Program Tools**

Beginning in 2004, Council agencies and other partners have worked to
develop Geographic Information System (GIS) tools with the capacity to
display crime problems, community and governmental assets including
evidence-based programs, and socioeconomic factors to help communities,
policy makers and program administrators in the prevention and control
of crime and delinquency. These tools drew upon developmental work
undertaken by OJJDP to create its model programs database and gang
prevention and reduction strategic planning tool and were enhanced and
populated by a cross agency working team. One was developed into the
*Community Guide to Helping America's Youth*; the other became the SMART
web-planning tool.

**2006: Council Supports Coordination through First Round of Inter
Agency Agreements**

Through OJJDP, the Council provided funding to several member agencies
to enable them to coordinate their work and leverage federal resources.
The four agreements provided \$100,000 each to the Departments of Labor,
Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services and to the
Corporation for Community and National Service. Work supported included:

**Federal Mentoring Council.** The interagency Federal Mentoring Council
(FMC) was established under joint leadership of the Corporation and HHS
to coordinate federal mentoring work and develop new federal initiatives
to increase the number of mentor-mentee pairs in the nation,
particularly those targeting disadvantaged youth.

**Shared Youth Vision (SYV).** Led by DOL and supported by the Council,
a number of federal agencies including DOJ, ED, HUD, HHS, U.S.
Department of Transportation (DOT), CNCS, and U.S. Social Security
Administration are partnering to reduce barriers and facilitate access
to federal resources for state and local jurisdictions to improve
efforts to serve the nation's neediest youth. In 2007, under separate
funding, 16 communities were selected for targeted support and funding
to demonstrate the types of partnerships and integration strategies that
should be used to target disadvantaged youth.

**SAMHSA Collaboration for Juvenile Treatment Services.** This effort
supported joint development by federal, state, and local authorities of
guidelines for working with youth offenders in the areas of screening,
assessment, referral, and treatment for substance abuse.

**2006: Coordinating Council Hosts First National Conference**

In 2006, the Council held its first Coordinating Council National
Conference attended by more than 2,000 people and featuring the First
Lady as the opening day speaker. Supported by OJJDP, the conference
provided a framework for action to address the many issues that face the
nation's youth. Each of the Council's member agencies sponsored,
organized, and facilitated one or more sessions at the Conference, and
engaged their constituencies in the conference. This was particularly
significant in that practitioners, researchers and others with interests
in prevention and youth well being in different fields such as workforce
development, substance and drug abuse, juvenile justice, mental health,
runaway and abused youth tend to communicate predominantly with others
in their own fields. Through this conference, these groups took
advantage of the networking sessions and the discussions to strengthen
cross sector understanding and work, and to promote coordinated
planning. Among the conference\'s most attended workshops was one that
featured representatives from more than a dozen federal agencies who
provided information about accessing federal resources that can be used
to support state and local efforts to assist youth and families.

**2007: Council Creates Federal Partnership Project**

The Council initiated several activities as part of the Federal
Partnership Project to increase the ability of federal staff to plan,
implement and support comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs)
designed to improve the well-being of children, youth, family, and
community; to strengthen federal cross-agency partnerships in support of
CCIs; and to enhance the federal practice of coordinated assistance to
improve the ability of states and local jurisdictions to best access and
use resources to improve the well-being of children, youth, and
families. The core product of the Federal Partnership Project is the
web-based CCI tool kit for federal program managers launched December
2008: <http://www.juvenilecouncil.gov/cci/index.asp> . Additionally, the
project compiled a listing of youth-related activities and programming
for key federal agencies and related budget information to help with
future joint planning. The compilation updated the Delinquency
Development Statements last produced in 1995.

**2008: Council Supports Second Round of Inter Agency Agreements
(IAAs)**

The Council funded four new IAAs to support additional work. This work
entails: enhanced coordination of federal resources for disadvantaged
youth, primarily through strengthening and enhancing the work associated
with the Shared Youth Vision Initiative, to Labor; activities aimed at
preventing child and adolescent injuries reducing deaths of infants,
children, and adolescents by developing the capacity of Child Death
Review Teams to the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of HHS; creation of
a web presence for the Federal Mentoring Council to CNCS to aid in
achievement of their goal of expanding the number of youth mentored; and
expansion of model theatre programming for youth at-risk of gang
involvement to the National Endowment for the Arts.

**Recent Council Achievements**

All work of the Council addresses one or more of its three goals (refer
to page four). A description of recent Council activities is listed on
the following pages under the most pertinent of its goals. Listed
programs and activities reflect efforts that are both sponsored or
supported through the Council as well as efforts developed primarily by
individual Council member agencies in conformance with Council goals.

As noted in the introduction, the Coordinating Council not only supports
the development of its own projects, publications, and working groups,
but also provides an opportunity for the federal partners to learn from
one another, share information about joint work, and strengthen the
foundation for pooling resources and joint decision making that
addresses prevention and youth well being. The following programs
support the 13 White House Task Force Recommendations adopted by the
Council in 2005:

***1. The Council has strengthened the practice of inter/intra agency
youth-focused collaboration as measured by increases from year to year
in the number of inter-agency collaborations on juvenile justice
issues.***

**Council Activity: Shared Youth Vision**

The Shared Youth Vision Partnership serves as a catalyst at the
national, state, and local levels to strengthen coordination,
communication, and collaboration among youth-serving agencies working to
help at-risk youth make successful and healthy transitions to adult
roles and responsibilities. Beginning in 2004, the federal partners
hosted a series of regional youth forums and basic and advanced series
of technical assistance conferences focusing on collaboration strategies
to better serve youth. In 2007, 16 pilot sites were selected to
demonstrate the types of partnerships and integration strategies that
should be used to target disadvantaged youth. Shared Youth Vision has
developed a number of tools and resources to enhance collaboration and
information dissemination. Among them are:

-   A collaborative Internet-based workspace provides information to
    state initiative partners and enhances cross-state communication.

-   A federal interagency Solutions Desk provides state teams a single
    point of access to the federal resources available to help states
    implement Shared Youth Vision activities.

-   A Federal Youth Funding Matrix provides states with information on
    funding available to serve youth in their state from each federal
    agency.

-   A Federal/State Benchmark Tool provides states with broad principles
    to help them gauge the effectiveness of their collaborative efforts.

**Council Activity: Federal Partnership Project**

As an outgrowth of a strategic planning meeting, the Council initiated
the Federal Partnership Project (refer also to page 7). The Council has
concluded the initial phase of these activities to: (1) increase
knowledge and strengthen federal collaboration and Comprehensive
Community Initiatives (CCIs); and (2) enhance federal coordination of
assistance to improve the well-being of children, youth, and families.
The initial phase was marked by production of a set of web-based tools
and practice guidelines for federal program and policy staff to assist
in the development and guidance of future CCIs and associated TA. The
tools also address practice guidelines for establishing and maintaining
cross agency partnerships to support CCBs and criteria to help structure
and provide the specialized systems change-focused technical assistance
comprehensive communities require. An update and expansion of the 1995
Delinquency Development Statements (DDS) report was compiled as a
foundation for joint planning. In the updated compilation, federal
agencies with significant youth portfolios describe the extent of their
related activities and programs and provide budget and funding cycle
information. Prior to its most recent reauthorization in 2002, the
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act required every federal
agency that administers a juvenile justice program to submit a DDS
annually to the Coordinating Council and to the Administrator of OJJDP.

**Council Activity: GIS Planning and Program Tools**

Council agencies and other partners have worked over the past 4 years to
develop two Geographic Information System (GIS) tools with the capacity
to display crime problems, community and governmental assets including
evidence-based programs, and socioeconomic factors to help communities,
policy makers and program administrators in the prevention and control
of crime and delinquency. These tools drew upon developmental work
undertaken by OJJDP to create its model programs database and gang
prevention and reduction strategic planning tool and were enhanced and
populated by a cross agency working team.

-   The Community Guide to Helping America's Youth integrates a model
    programs database with resource mapping and community data into a
    Web-based planning tool for communities. In 2005, President Bush
    announced that First Lady Laura Bush would lead a new initiative,
    the Helping America's Youth (HAY) Initiative, focused on connecting
    at-risk youth with family, school, and their community to help
    children and teens reach their full potential. Nine federal
    agencies, led by OJJDP and HHS and including seven Council member
    agencies, contributed their knowledge and programs to the HAY
    initiative by developing the *Community Guide to Helping America's
    Youth.* The Guide is a set of web-based tools to help communities
    build partnerships, assess needs and resources, and select from
    program designs that could be replicated in their community.

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-   OJJDP's Socioeconomic Mapping and Resource Topography Tool (SMART)
    is a Web-based mapping application that pinpoints local geographic
    areas of crime and delinquency and nearby governmental and community
    resources to prevent and control it. This tool was developed to help
    federal, state, and local decisionmakers target areas of greatest
    need and allocate resources accordingly. Along with maps, SMART
    creates tables and graphs to chart a wide array of socioeconomic
    data, such as population, crime, housing, health, and mortality.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Improve coordination of
mentoring programs.** When OJJDP decided to start funding local
mentoring efforts in 1995 as part of their goals around delinquency
prevention and reduced recidivism, the nation's mentoring landscape
looked very different than it does today. While mentoring had been a
part of the youth services landscape for almost 100 years at that point,
mostly in the form of Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the formal discipline of
youth mentoring was somewhat in its infancy. However, the funding that
OJJDP provided the mentoring field through the Juvenile Mentoring (JUMP)
initiative, combined with a growing public interest and fresh
perspectives from new research, signaled a dramatic shift in the growth
of youth mentoring.

OJJDP has long supported mentoring programs. Since 1994, OJJDP has
received appropriations of more than \$200 million to support juvenile
and youth mentoring programs. In FY 2008, OJJDP awarded more than \$60
million to support community mentoring programs, including funding that
addressed the needs of underserved, at-risk youth populations in
American Indian and Alaska Native communities and Latino communities
with youth gang problems. Council member HHS is developing a data
collection/analysis system for the National Mentoring Partnership and
has established the Mentoring Children of Prisoners program, while DOL's
Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is working closely with
CNCS's Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program to coordinate
mentoring efforts for reentry initiatives. CNCS is also developing an
initiative to increase the number of mentors for disadvantaged youth,
and has established with Council support the Federal Mentoring Council,
a Federal interagency coordinating body whose purpose is to increase the
number of mentor-mentee pairs nationwide.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Support state and local
community planning process.** Through the Shared Youth Vision
Partnership, DOL, DOJ, ED, HUD, HHS, U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT), CNCS, and U.S. Social Security Administration have combined
efforts with state agencies to increase efficiency and delivery of
services to the nation's neediest youth through follow-up of coordinated
state and local policies and approaches. A collaborative Internet-based
workspace has been developed to enhance state initiative partners and
cross-state communication. As noted, the Shared Youth Vision has
developed tools to enhance collaboration and information dissemination.

DOL and ED are also collaborating in areas of mutual interest including
literacy, GED programs, and alternative education.

Other Council agency assistance to the states includes HHS grants and
special assistance. HHS convened 12 states to develop performance
measures for youth programs. HHS grants include grant refunding for nine
states through State Youth Development Collaboration Grants and
co-occurring State Incentive Grants (COSIG) provide funds to states to
build or enhance service system infrastructure to provide effective,
integrated treatment and services for people with co-occurring mental
and substance use disorders. HHS Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF)
State Incentive Grants enables states and communities to build
prevention capacity and infrastructure to reduce substance abuse-related
problems, and HHS's New State Mental Health Transformation Grants helps
states develop a Comprehensive Mental Health Plan, build mental health
services infrastructure, and promote implementation of science-based
mental health interventions

DOJ has established a National Truancy Prevention Association to serve
as truancy clearinghouse and help communities build truancy programs,
and is developing a computerized strategic planning tool to eliminate
service gaps and duplication.

HUD is developing an initiative to assist local housing authorities in
pilot cities to help public housing residents achieve economic
self-sufficiency, while the Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP) continues its Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign briefings,
community program planning and implementation through anti-drug
coalition grants, and National Anti-Drug Coalition Institute training
for community coalitions.

Collaborative efforts are also enhanced by a CNCS statute that requires
each state receiving funds from the Corporation to submit a statewide
unified comprehensive cross-stream service plan that involves all local
service programs.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Expand mentoring programs to
special target groups such as foster care and migrant youth.** HHS is
working to increase access to mentoring services through its Mentoring
Children of Prisoners (MCP) program. Through technical assistance to
grant recipients, DOL continues to encourage the integration of
mentoring components by using local mentoring-based organizations, while
ED's mentoring program targets disadvantaged middle school youth.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Increase parent involvement in
federal youth programs.** At DOJ parent groups are required to be part
of advisory councils that oversee formula grant funding. ONDCP has
developed a Media Campaign's called Parent@Work Program. The Runaway and
Homeless Youth program, administered by ACF/FYSB at HHS, seeks to
reunify youth with their parents when it is appropriate.

Through state collaboration projects emphasizing parents and youth as
partners in youth programming, HHS has increased parent involvement in
its youth programs. HHS requires support for and inclusion of family and
youth partnerships in planning, management, and evaluation of the
Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their
Families Program, and promotes and supports states and communities
implementing family-driven and youth-guided care. HHS includes college
students in Family and Youth Services Bureau grant review. HHS is also
developing a guide and web site for parents on teen health: *Family
Guide To Keeping Youth Mentally Healthy & Drug Free.*

**White House Task Force Recommendation Recruit youth for federal grant
review panels**. HHS is including college students in its Family and
Youth Services Bureau grant review.

***2. The Council has increased knowledge, dissemination, and use of
evidence-based programs in juvenile justice.***

**Council Activity: Federal Mentoring Council**

With support from the Coordinating Council, at the impetus of CNCS and
under the joint leadership of CNCS and HHS, the interagency Federal
Mentoring Council (FMC) was established in 2006 to coordinate federal
mentoring work and develop new federal initiatives to increase the
number of mentor-mentee pairs in the nation, particularly those
targeting disadvantaged youth. The FMC identified gaps in mentoring
services, assessed current knowledge about what works and how to
identify and disseminate best practices in the mentoring field, and
developed the following common description of mentoring for federal
agencies: "Mentoring is a structured, sustained relationship between an
older, more experienced person and a young person that is designed to
improve one or more of the following: family and peer relationships;
health and health behaviors; self-esteem and well-being; and motivation,
attitude, and achievement related to education and/or to work."

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Develop standards for measuring
grantee performance.** Responding to the need for accountability,
performance, and research-proven best practices, DOJ has developed and
is implementing performance standards and more empirical evaluations
that use higher scientific standards, and implementing an agency-wide
performance measurement system for all grants focused on outcomes. The
performance-based standards (PbS) project is one way that OJJDP employs
to help states and localities assess and strengthen the quality of the
custody they exercise over youth in the delinquency system. Also, DOJ
has expanded its evaluation of the seven-city Truancy Reduction Program
to build a foundation for the design of research-proven best practices.
Another effort is the ongoing evaluation of model programs to enforce
underage drinking laws.

In a similar vein, HHS is developing common terms, instruments, and
definitions for MCP evaluation and has added and modified performance
measures for the Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) and MCP programs. HHS
is encouraging the use of evidence-based practices through the National
Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP).

DOL has developed standard performance measures and definitions specific
to offender-serving grantees while CNCS applicants self-nominate
performance measures, which corporation staff approve Grantee funding is
tied to performance reporting. CNCS is currently measuring the annual
performance of AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and Senior Corps.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Implement grantee-level
performance measurement guidelines.** DOJ's OJJDP has implemented an
agency-wide performance measurement system for all grants, including
formula, block, earmarked, and discretionary programs that is focused on
outcomes. The system encompasses a performance measurement web page with
specific guidelines for grantees, training, and individual assistance,
as needed. CNCS has placed new requirements for performance measurement
in the rules for AmeriCorps.

HHS requires its grantees to track National Outcomes Measures. The
Drug-Free Communities Program, a partnership of the Substance and Mental
Health Service Administration in HHS and the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, emphasizes outcome goals in the grant announcement.
Additionally HHS is studying homeless youth profiles and program
caseloads to improve outcomes in agencies. DOL's ETA-funded youth
programs have implemented standard performance measures and goals for
offender-serving grantees, and three common measures for all ETA youth
programs. ETA revised reporting instructions to collect common measures
in 2005. 

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Build a rigorous and unified
disadvantaged youth research agenda.** OJJDP created and filled a new
research coordinator position in 2005. To date work has---of
necessity---focused on coordinating applicable research programs within
OJP agencies. DOL is coordinating with OJJDP on a random assignment
evaluation of the Avon Park Correctional Facility, and plans to evaluate
all DOL youth programs. ED is planning an out-of-school youth data
collection effort.

HHS has completed its design study for a national evaluation of the
Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) program, and finished a study of
"Promising Strategies to End Youth Homelessness." HHS is evaluating
programs for homeless youth, abstinence education programs and other
approaches to teen pregnancy prevention, and portions of the John Chafee
Foster Care Independence Program. HHS provided funding for a
random-assignment impact evaluation of six selected youth offender sites
to test the effectiveness of alternative sentencing and aftercare
services, and provided funding for a labor-oriented data analysis of
work undertaken by the Northwestern Juvenile Project on behalf of DOJ.

CNS has funded random assignment evaluation of Parent Drug Corps and has
solicited proposals to fund random-assignment evaluation of AmeriCorps.
CNCS is also involved in a random-assignment, multiyear longitudinal
study of AmeriCorps participants, analyzing a CNCS-funded survey of
youth volunteering.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Improve data collected on the
well-being of families.** DOJ and HHS both participate in the Federal
Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, and DOJ participate in
the planning meetings of the National Child Study. HHS has produced a
chart book of indicators of social context of families. DOL has expanded
offender-oriented data collection templates to include information
related to housing, homelessness, foster care, independent living,
temporary shelter, etc.

***3. The Council has elevated the importance of a comprehensive
juvenile justice agenda at the federal level, and achieved an increased
alignment of goals between the juvenile justice and other systems at all
levels of government.***

**Council Activity: Interagency Agreements (IAAs)**

Through OJJDP, the Council has entered into two rounds of IAAs to
leverage member agencies resources, including those that established the
Federal Mentoring Council and supported regional technical assistance
workshops under the Shared Youth Vision initiative. (See appendix for a
listing of all the IAAs.) Additionally, an agreement between OJJDP and
SAMHSA supports joint development by federal, state, and local
authorities of guidelines for working with youth offenders in the areas
of screening, assessment, referral, and treatment. The goal of this
partnership is to better coordinate investment of federal, state, and
local efforts to build resiliency and facilitate recovery among youth at
risk or suffering from substance abuse or mental health disorders. Major
activities under this agreement include:

-   OJJDP and SAMHSA convened a series of one-day summit meetings to
    bring together practitioners and researchers who focus on prevention
    and treatment of substance abuse and mental health disorders within
    community settings and within juvenile justice settings to share
    common knowledge, instrumentation, and information about approaches
    that are working in both settings.

-   OJJDP and SAMHSA held a series of partnership meetings between the
    two agencies.

-   SAMHSA held a planning forum on tribal juvenile justice and
    substance abuse/mental health issues as a means of improving policy
    coordination in that arena.

Outcomes of the first two activities included two new joint grant
programs -- one in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
involves juvenile drug court grants, the other is a joint OJJDP/CSAT
Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (BIRT) program for youth --
and foundational discussions toward development, likely in FY 09, of a
single application, single review grant program for juvenile drug courts
and treatment services.

As a result of the tribal planning forum (November 2006), SAMHSA hosted
first Policy Academy on Co-occurring Substance Use and Mental Disorders
for Native Communities (September 2007) including tribal youth in
Wellness Courts and is continuing to work with Tribes to implement their
policy changes.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Target youth who are in public
care, such as foster care homes and juvenile justice institutions.** DOJ
has implemented a Juvenile Ready4Work Initiative, and developed a
faith-based juvenile corrections reentry program with the State of
Florida while ED has an ongoing project targeted to this issue, Oregon's
Social Learning Center Treatment Foster Care Program. Also ongoing are
ED Title I grants to law enforcement agencies. ED is investigating a
possible collaboration with HHS on youth aging out of foster care.

HHS is also focused on studies of youth who are aging out of foster
care, and an evaluation assessment of discharge/transition planning as
homeless prevention strategy. The focus on children in juvenile justice
and child welfare settings is a priority in the Comprehensive Community
Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program.

In response to this recommendation, DOL awarded five foster care youth
demonstration grants for two years. The agency entered into an
evaluation partnership with Casey Family Programs, which also provided
the funding to the sites for the third year and sustainability. Results
have been positive: Twenty-three percent of the youth attained a GED or
high school diploma, 17 percent enrolled in post-secondary education,
and 35 percent had jobs -- figures all well above the averages for youth
who've been in foster care.

DOL has more than \$155.4 million invested in a youth offender portfolio
that involves 48 grantees covering approximately 133 sites that provide
a variety of workforce development services to at-risk and offender
youth. The newest addition to the Youth Offender Portfolio was awarded
on July 1, 2005. Sixteen grants were awarded a total of \$15.6 million
to serve youth who have been touched by the juvenile justice system to
prepare them for entering high-growth, high-demand industry occupations.
These grants are located in 11 states and served approximately 3,200
youth by the end of the grant period in 2006.

**White House Task Force Recommendation: Target youth with a high number
of factors putting them at risk, such as children of incarcerated
parents and migrant youth.** The programs to reduce the risk of
particularly vulnerable children include a wide range of assistance on
many fronts including DOJ's Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
Initiative and its Gang Reduction Program, ED's Reading First
Initiative, and ONDCP's student drug testing in schools.

HHS programs range from those that work to improve outcomes for migrant
youth, children of prisoners (through mentoring programs) and Native
American youth to refining data collection on homeless youth programs
and the previously mentioned data collection on youth aging out of
foster care. HHS is developing an initiative to achieve substance abuse
resiliency and recovery response. Access to Recovery includes improving
access and outcomes for substance abuse treatment for parents and
adolescents. HHS is also participating in a federal review group to
assess the feasibility of administering mental health screenings in
various service systems.

DOL is designing an initiative to help migrant farm worker families. DOL
also issued a Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) 28-05 in
May 2006 entitled "Expanding ETA's Vision for the Delivery of Youth
Services under WIA to include Indian and Native American Youth and Youth
with Disabilities" this has served to include Indian and Native American
youth and youth with disabilities as part of the neediest youth
populations.

**Special Projects: Federal Coordination in the Gulf Coast Region**

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Council directed attention to
coordination of federal resources for at-risk youth in New Orleans and
the Gulf Coast. Activities include:

-   An assessment of the needs of the juvenile courts and youth-serving
    agencies and consultation to the local and state agencies to help
    them access available resources.

-   Building upon its Shared Youth Vision platform, DOL awarded a \$15
    million National Emergency Grant (NEG) focusing on out-of-school
    youth in the New Orleans area. The grant program was designed
    specifically to support at-risk youth and was supported by federal
    collaboration in the region. In January 2008, DOL sponsored the "New
    Orleans Region Mixer" to engage all the Shared Youth Vision federal
    partners along with their state and local counterparts. The meeting
    focused on launching the NEG activities, asset mapping, and
    strengthening communication between federal, state, and local
    agencies, and across systems.

**Coordinating Council: Summary and Looking Forward**

Under the leadership of this Council, much has been undertaken to
improve delinquency prevention programs through joint initiatives and
coordinated resource deployment. With its sponsorship of the first
national Council conference, its institution in FY05 of inter agency
agreements designed specifically to support member agencies that
undertake collaborative and joint work, and a round two set of IAAs in
FY 08, its support for many coordinated and joint activities and
development of the Comprehensive Communities Initiative tool kit, this
Council has strengthened the infrastructure for joint planning and
coordinated expenditure. Leveraging of resources delivers tangible value
on behalf of taxpayers and responds to requests from the field. The
update of the Delinquency Development Statement report, which delineates
the delinquency-related activities of member agencies as well as their
budgets, planning cycles and program priorities contributes to this
foundation. This is work that is correlated strongly with the
receptivity of Council and member agency leadership, and will
continually need to be strengthened and deepened.

**Recommendations**

Therefore, based on the continuing goals and mission of the Coordinating
Council, the framework of their earlier recommendations, and recent work
of the Council and the federal agencies, the Council makes the following
recommendations:

1\. Shared Youth Vision (SYV): The Council recommends member agencies
adopt the SYV approach to joint federal-state-local coordination and
collaboration. This interagency program led by the Department of Labor
responds directly to the White House Task Force Recommendation, "Support
the state and local community planning process."

2\. Federal Mentoring Council: The Council recommends Congressional
support for the continuation of the Federal Mentoring Council. This
interagency council, co-chaired by the Corporation for National and
Community Service and the Department of Health and Human Services,
responds directly to the White House Task Force Recommendation, "Improve
coordination of mentoring programs."

3\. Federal Partnership Project: The Council recommends the adoption and
use of the resources/toolkits by federal agencies in their development
of comprehensive community programs and the use of the Delinquency
Development Statement report to facilitate joint program planning by
member agencies. This interagency work led by the Department of Justice
responds directly to the White House Task Force Recommendation, "Support
the state and local community planning process."

4\. Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs: The Council recommends
that this body, recently created by Executive Order 13459, coordinate
with the Coordinating Council. This interagency effort led by the
Department of HHS responds directly to the White House Task Force
Recommendation, "Support the state and local community planning
process."

5\. Socioeconomic Mapping and Resource Topography Tool (SMART): The
Council recommends the consistent use and promotion of this data and
mapping technology by federal agencies in their program development and
community support work. This initiative led by the Department of Justice
responds to the White House Task Force Recommendation, "Support the
state and local community planning process."