NJJEC Bulletin March 2013

The NJJEC Bulletin

NJJEC is a project of the 

Justice Research and 

Statistics Association 

funded by the Office of 

Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention

(OJJDP). NJJEC’s purpose is 

to improve the evaluation 

capacity of states, localities, 

and tribes and facilitate the 

use of evidence-based 

programs and practices in 

juvenile justice. The NJJEC 

Bulletin is disseminated 

directly to subscribers and 

posted on the NJJEC 

website, and provides 

information related to 

juvenile justice evaluation 

that is of interest to state, 

local, and tribal juvenile 

justice professionals. 

We welcome your 

participation! If you would 

like to submit an article, 

suggest a news item for the 

Bulletin, or ask a question 

about evaluation, e-mail 

njjec@jrsa.org. For more 

information about the 

resources available through 

the National Juvenile Justice 

Evaluation Center, visit the 

NJJEC website. 

What’s Going On at 

NJJEC?

NJJEC staff have created Hiring 

and Working With An 

Evaluator, the first 

presentation in a series of 

short, narrated slideshow on 

program evaluation and 

performance measurement. 

This resource discusses the 

advantages of hiring an 

evaluator, how to select an 

evaluator, and how to develop 

and evaluation plan. Access 

the video on the NJJEC SkillBuilding Page.

The next narrated slideshow in 

the series will discuss the 

important elements of good 

program evaluation. It is 

designed to assist practitioners 

in determining the quality of 

an evaluation, and the strength

of research evidence about the 

effects of an intervention or 

program. 

NJJEC staff will deliver a 

webinar entitled, “Making 

‘What Works’ Work for You: 

Evidence-Based Components 

and Adaptation” on Thursday, 

April 25th. Panelists will 

discuss the advantages of an 

evidence-based components 

approach to programming, and 

how and when practitioners 

should consider modifying an 

EBP. Registration is available 

on the OJJDP NTTAC website. 

Upcoming Events of 

Interest

Boys and Girls Clubs of 

America 2013 National 

Conference

May 1-May 3

The Boys and Girls Clubs of 

America will hold its 2013 

National Conference focusing 

on youth development in 

Orlando, Florida May 1-May 3. 

Check the website for 

conference information and to 

register! The deadline for the 

special hotel rate is March 29.

Coalition for Juvenile 

Justice (CJJ) Spring 

Conference

May 2-May 5

The Coalition for Juvenile 

Justice (CJJ) will hold its 

annual conference May 2-May 

5 at the Dupont Circle Hotel 

in Washington, DC. The 

theme of this year’s conference 

is “Building Supportive 

Communities to Prevent 

Violence and Delinquency.” 

Conference information, 

including a draft agenda and 

registration information, is 

available on CJJ’s website.
NJJEC Bulletin Page 2

Featured Resources:

The California Evidence-Based 

Clearinghouse for Child Welfare 

(CEBC)

There are a number of resources dedicated 

to program effectiveness and evidence-based 

practice in juvenile justice: 

Crimesolutions.gov, the Model Programs 

Guide, and Blueprints for Healthy Youth 

Development (formerly Blueprints for 

Violence Prevention), to name a few. 

As we discussed in the July 2012 issue of the 

NJJEC Bulletin, resources available from 

non-justice fields such as such as psychology 

and education can be useful tools for 

juvenile justice practitioners interested in 

learning about effective interventions. 

These resources are of particular interest to 

service providers working with crossover 

youth, who are involved in both juvenile 

justice and child welfare systems. 

The California Evidence-Based 

Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC)

provides information on successful 

evidence-based interventions related to 

child abuse, neglect, and mental health. The 

child welfare programs included in the 

CEBC are either in use or marketed in 

California, but many are nationally 

recognized and have been implemented in 

other states and localities. In fact, many of 

the programs the CEBC designates as wellsupported by research can also be found in 

juvenile justice evidence-based program 

tools. These interventions include 

Motivational Interviewing, Multisystemic 

Therapy (MST), Cognitive Behavioral 

Therapy (CBT), and Multidimensional 

Family Therapy (MDT).

The Clearinghouse informs practitioners 

about the strength of the evidence 

supporting a program. Each program is 

ranked along a continuum from wellsupported to concerning practice. Experts in 

the field determine the ratings based on 

published, peer-reviewed research. Those 

not able to be rated due to insufficient 

evidence are assigned a rating of NR. The 

relevance of each intervention to the child 

welfare system is designated as high, 

medium, or low.

In addition to program ratings, CEBC 

collects implementation resources for 

programs ranked “Well-Supported by 

Research Evidence” and “Supported by 

Research Evidence.” These resources are 

designed to assist practitioners with 

executing an evidence-based program plan 

with fidelity to the model. The 

Clearinghouse also provides general tools for 

implementing child welfare programs and 

approaches to implementation used in other 

fields. 

The CEBC includes information on 

screening and assessment tools for child 

welfare, and rates these tools with a separate 

system that designates the reliability and 

validity of the tools—that is, whether or not 

they measure behavior and characteristics 

consistently and accurately. The group of 

assessment tools rated by the CEBC includes 

the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ)

and the Strengths and Difficulties 

Questionnaire (SDQ) that examine 

characteristics of youth and their families. 

To be eligible for rating, an assessment tool 

must be related to child welfare and include 

administration instructions. 
NJJEC Bulletin Page 3

Evaluation Feature:

Effective Assessment Tools

Assessment tools are widely used in juvenile 

justice to determine needs of youth, best 

intervention and treatment options, and risk of 

future delinquency. Because important 

decisions about treatment and intervention are 

based on youths’ needs/risk assessment scores, 

it is critical for practitioners to use instruments 

that have been properly evaluated and shown 

to be effective.

Just as there are many evidence-based 

programs shown to improve outcomes for 

youth, there are a number of assessment tools 

that effectively measure youths’ personality 

characteristics and risk factors. These 

instruments are able to predict future 

offending with some degree of accuracy. 

 

Once an assessment tool has been 

implemented in your jurisdiction or program, 

additional steps are needed to make sure that 

tool is effective and has been implemented 

properly in your particular context—that is, it 

is being administered and scored correctly, 

and responses to scores are appropriate. The 

first of these steps is to compare assessment 

scores in your population with a normative 

sample for which the tool has already been 

validated, and determine potential 

explanations for any notable differences in 

average scores. 

The Hennepin County (MN) Department of 

Community Corrections and Rehabilitation’s 

Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation 

provides a great example of this. The 

DOCCR’s YLS/CMI Norming Report examines 

scores on the Youth Level of Service/Case 

Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) in 

Hennepin County, comparing county data to 

two national samples from the United States 

and Canada to determine similarities and 

differences for the scores of each sample on 

the YLS’s eight domains: Prior and Current 

Offenses/ Dispositions, Family 

Circumstances/ Parenting, Education/ 

Employment, Peer Relations, Substance 

Abuse, Leisure/ Recreation, Personality/ 

Behavior, and Attitudes/ Orientation. 

Researchers examined average scores to see if 

youth scored similarly between the Hennepin 

County and normative samples. They found

similar trends, such as higher scores for 

females compared to males in each sample 

for the Personality/Behavior and Family 

Circumstances/Parenting domains.

Comparing local data with a normative 

sample provides an opportunity to explore 

how youth or system characteristics might 

explain some differences in scores for the two 

groups. For example, only 28 percent of the 

Hennepin County sample was classified as 

“low risk” for reoffending, while 49 percent of 

the U.S. sample was classified as “low risk.” 

The authors note that Hennepin County 

Juvenile Probation has a policy that prevents 

low level juvenile offenders from being 

assessed with the YLS. This likely explains 

the differences in average risk between the 

two groups, because most Hennepin County 

youth who would have scored lower have 

been excluded from the assessment entirely. 

This examination provides a foundation for a 

full evaluation of the YLS assessment tool. 

The evaluation will include recidivism data in 

Hennepin County to determine how well the 

tool predicts future behavior. If the future 

evaluation determines that the tool is as 

predictive of future behavior as it was in 

national evaluations, it will be validated for 

use in Hennepin County. 
State Spotlight: 

Connecticut

The Justice Policy Institute has released a 

report summarizing dramatic changes that 

have occurred recently in Connecticut’s 

juvenile justice system. Connecticut has 

employed a number of tactics to reduce 

juvenile confinement, including raising the age 

at which youth are automatically tried as 

adults. 

Some of the key contributors to Connecticut’s 

success have been the use of evidence-based 

practices and an increased attention to data 

collection and analysis. The report includes a 

summary of six family-based therapies used in 

Connecticut to address risk factors that 

contribute to juvenile delinquency, including 

well-known evidence-based practices such as 

Functional Family Therapy (FFT), 

Multisystemic Therapy (MST), and 

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care 

(MDFT). 

The state’s reform efforts include reducing 

court referrals for school misconduct, using 

screening tools so that youth at lower risk of 

reoffending and/or committing less serious 

offenses are not placed in residential 

confinement, and training law enforcement on 

DMC issues. 

Overall, Connecticut has reduced its 

residential commitments of youth by 70 

percent between 2000 and 2011 without 

increasing costs. These changes are 

consistent with the requirements of the 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

Act (JJDPA), the key legislation that 

established the Office of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and set key 

standards for the juvenile justice system and 

prevention efforts. According to the report, 

this progress has been due to an emphasis on 

the use of evidence-based practices over 

confinement. 

In addition to successes in reducing juvenile 

confinement and arrest rates, Connecticut 

has also experienced significant cost savings 

during the reform efforts. The report notes 

spending by the Department of Children and 

Families and the Judicial Branch’s Court 

Support Services Division during the 2011-2012 

fiscal year was $2 million less than these

agencies spent ten years earlier. 

For greater detail on Connecticut’s recent 

reforms, read the Justice Policy Institute’s full 

report, or for an overview, access the 

executive summary. 

NJJEC Bulletin Page 4

NJJEC Bulletin is the newsletter of the National Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center. It provides information on NJJEC 

project activities, evaluation-related activities of OJJDP grantees, and upcoming trainings and conferences of interest.

To access NJJEC project information and resources: http://www.jrsa.org/njjec/

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To unsubscribe: e-mail njjec@jrsa.org

NJJEC is a Project of the Justice Research and Statistics Association. 

Notice of Federal Funding and Federal Disclaimer: This document was prepared under Grant Number 2010-JF-FX-0063 from the 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or 

opinions in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the 

U.S. Department of Justice.