NJJEC Bulletin January 2014

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? 

On March 20, NJJEC and 

OJJDP’s National Training and 

Technical Assistance Center 

(NTTAC) will host a webinar 

with the Colorado Division of 

Criminal Justice (CDCJ) and an 

evaluation team from OMNI 

Institute to highlight a recent 

evaluation of 19 juvenile 

diversion programs funded by 

the CDCJ. 

The discussion will focus on the 

effort to gain stakeholder buyin, data collection efforts across 

program sites, and the 

collaboration between CDCJ, the 

OMNI evaluation team, and 

diversion program managers 

and staff. 

Registration will be available in 

the upcoming weeks on the 

OJJDP NTTAC website. For a 

summary of the evaluation and 

results, check out the Evaluation 

Feature in this issue of the 

NJJEC Bulletin!

Registration has reached 

capacity for our upcoming 

webinar, Drilling Down: An 

Analytical Look at EBP 

Resources. The webinar is 

sponsored by OJJDP NTTAC and 

will take place on Thursday, 

February 6 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. 

EST. Representatives from 

OJJDP’s Model Programs Guide 

and NIJ’s CrimeSolutions.gov 

will be available to respond to 

questions specific to those 

resources. The archived 

webinar will be made available 

on the NTTAC website.

Do you have a suggestion for a 

new webinar topic or resource? 

Email njjec@jrsa.org! 

Upcoming Events of 

Interest

2014 National Conference on 

Bullying

February 26-28

The 2014 National Conference 

on Bullying will be held by 

Students Against Violence 

Everywhere (SAVE) February 26 

through 28 in Orlando, Florida. 

The conference will focus on 

evidence-based practices for 

preventing bullying. View the 

conference website for more 

information.

2014 National AfterSchool 

Association Annual 

Convention

February 28-March 3

The National AfterSchool 

Association (NAA) will hold its 
NJJEC Bulletin Page 2

annual convention February 28 through March 3 

in New York, New York. The theme of the 

conference is Experience Innovation. The agenda 

includes over 100 workshop sessions on 

afterschool programs and an “Innovation 

Stations” poster session.

Check the conference website for more 

information and to register. 

Featured Resources:

The National Center on

Safe Supportive

Learning Environments

The National Center on Safe Supportive Learning 

Environments (NCSSLE) provides resources 

related to school improvement, including student 

engagement, safety, and other environmental 

factors affecting student learning and success. 

While the Center targets education professionals, 

a number of its resources might be of use to youth 

service providers in other fields. 

The project is a product of partnership between 

the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe 

and Healthy Students and the U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and 

Mental Health Services Administration 

(SAMHSA). The website is operated by the 

American Institutes for Research (AIR).

Many of the Center’s resources support 

implementation and measurement of programs 

affecting student success, and would be useful for 

practitioners in juvenile justice and child welfare. 

Many youth service providers would like to make 

use of surveys to gauge attitudes and behaviors of 

youth, particularly pre- and post-program surveys 

that can be used to demonstrate change. The 

Center’s page on School Climate Measurement

provides assessment tools and indicators that 

measure different elements of school climate. 

The NCSSLE Survey Webinar Series covers 

topics such as survey development, 

administration, analysis of response data, and 

evaluating survey reliability, which may be of 

interest to program managers and staff who 

are developing their own surveys and 

assessment tools.

The Center’s website also includes a page 

entitled Innovation Spotlights which 

highlights successful efforts in school 

improvement, and include data to support the 

success of these initiatives. 

Evaluation Feature:

Colorado and OMNI Institute 

Juvenile Diversion Program 

Evaluation

The OMNI Institute, in collaboration with the 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

(JJDP) Council, which serves as Colorado’s 

State Advisory Group, and the Colorado 

Division of Criminal Justice (CDCJ) recently 

completed an evaluation of 19 programs under 

its state-funded Juvenile Diversion grant 

program. The evaluation was funded with 

OJJDP Title II formula grant funds to facilitate 

system improvement. 

The programs included in the evaluation 

encompassed a range of sizes—from 175 youth 

to fewer than 50 youth participating—and 

services, which were grouped into five 

categories for analysis: Supervision, 

Treatment, Accountability, Restorative Justice, 

and Competency. 

The evaluation focused on short-term 

outcomes such as changes in attitude, as well 

as long-term outcomes such as reduced 
NJJEC Bulletin Page 3

recidivism. The evaluation team defined 

recidivism two ways: 1) a filing or filings for a 

new offense during participation in the program 

or up to one year after leaving the program 

(“during and post-program recidivism”), and 2) 

filing for an offense committed up to one year 

after they exited the program (“post-program 

recidivism”).

The analysis of seven short-term outcomes 

showed significant, positive changes for youth 

who participated in CDCJ-funded diversion 

programs. These factors included Connection 

to Community, Decision Making, Future 

Aspirations, Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, 

Sense of Accountability, and Risky Behavioral 

Intentions. Each was measured by pre- and 

post-program surveys. 

The results showed that youth who 

demonstrated significant improvements in SelfEsteem, Locus of Control, and Risky Behavioral 

Intentions were less likely to recidivate, 

indicating that diversion programs impacting 

these short-term outcomes also improved longterm outcomes. 

In addition, the study found that participation 

in diversion programming, particularly 

community service, also reduced recidivism for 

youth at higher risk of reoffending, including 

males and youth who had prior contact with the 

police. Youth who received a diagnostic 

assessment as part of diversion programming 

increased the likelihood of significant 

improvements among outcomes, indicating the 

importance of having a screening, assessment, 

and treatment process in place for youth. 

The evaluation team included 

recommendations for the CDCJ, summarized 

below:

1. Maintain core evaluation activities, 

including pre- and post-program data 

collection and fidelity measures.

2. Encourage grantees to examine their 

practices in light of the evaluation findings, 

and incorporate evaluation findings into 

future Requests for Proposals.

3. Explore the underrepresentation of nonwhite youth in diversion programs.

4. Identify ways to increase the use of 

screening and assessment tools for youth in 

diversion programs, and collect associated 

data to determine the best diversion 

approaches for youth.

Source: Statewide Evaluation of the DCJ Juvenile Diversion 

Program. OMNI Institute. Submitted to the Colorado Division 

of Criminal Justice, June 2013.

State Spotlight:

Maryland

The article below was provided by Thomasina 

Hiers, Deputy Secretary of Programs for the 

Maryland Department of Human Resources. 

In 2007, the Department of Human Resources 

(DHR), Maryland’s human services and child 

welfare agency, launched Place Matters. The 

initiative demonstrated a deliberate and 

focused shift in its practice, policy and service 

delivery to improve the continuum of services 

for children and families. The program places 

emphasis on preventing children from coming 

into care of the child welfare system when 

possible, and ensures that children are 

appropriately placed when they enter care. As 

a result of this work, Maryland has seen 

significant improvement in outcomes for 

system-involved youth. There are fewer youth 

in foster care than at any time in at least 25 

years (a reduction of over 10,000 to 6,000 

youth in care), and more than 13,000 children 

in foster care have found permanent homes 

since the inception of Place Matters. 

With the unprecedented success of the 

program came unintended consequences: 
`

more than half of the youth remaining in foster 

care are ages 14 and older, and 30% are over the 

age of 18. Research shows youth who age out 

of the foster care system face considerable 

challenges with regard to education, 

employment, stable housing, permanent 

connections, and social/emotional well-being. 

DHR built upon the work of the Maryland 

Children’s Cabinet to mobilize services for all 

older youth with Ready by 21 (RB21), a 

comprehensive effort that seeks to address 

educational and employment outcomes; 

financial stability (through employment, 

entitlement benefits, established credit and 

basic identification documents); health and 

well-being (linkages to health care services);

permanent, supportive connections; and safe, 

affordable, stable housing. DHR’s current RB21 

partners include: 

 AIDS Interfaith Residential Services 

(AIRS): 35 foster youth in the Baltimore 

area who are preparing to “age out” 

receive housing, education, 

employment, healthcare, financial 

literacy and mentoring, over a 12 month 

period; and

 University of Maryland School of 

Social Work: Secured a planning grant 

from the federal Department of Health 

and Human Services to develop an 

intervention for foster youth at-risk of 

homelessness in five counties and to 

evaluate the RB21 framework.

RB21 is driven by the core strategies of the 

Youth Engagement Model (YEM), which 

ensures that youth are active partners in the 

decision making process for their futures. A 

Youth Advisory Board (YAB) provides a forum 

for current and former foster care youth to 

discuss how foster care has impacted their 

lives, school, social situations, and other 

topics, and promotes leadership development 

for participating youth. 

Maryland’s YEM is designed to address the 

needs and involve youth (ages 14-21) who are 

committed to the child welfare system. 

Soliciting youth input is vital to improving 

foster care policy and practice, and to improve 

outcomes for system youth. As experts on 

their own lives, youth must be considered 

partners in the child welfare decision making 

process. Maryland is currently implementing 

this model statewide, and it will serve as the 

foundation of all efforts to prepare youth in 

foster care for the inevitable transition to 

independent living.

Featured article does not represent an endorsement of 

the program(s) by the National Juvenile Justice 

Evaluation Center or the Office of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. 

Department of Justice. 

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/

To subscribe: http://www.jrsa.org/njjec/newsletter.htm

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.