NJJEC Bulletin September 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?

NJJEC is pleased to announce 

the addition of Dr. Jaime 

Michel to our staff. Jaime has 

worked on issues related to 

the juvenile justice system for 

the past decade. Her work in 

juvenile justice has cut across 

the direct service, research 

and policy arenas. She earned 

her MSW from San Francisco 

State University, with a focus 

on social work and the law as 

it pertains to the juvenile 

justice system. After working 

as a social worker in the San 

Francisco Public Defender’s 

office, Jaime decided to 

pursue a research-focused 

degree and in 2013 earned her 

doctorate in Community 

Psychology from the 

University of Virginia. Jaime’s 

research at UVA centered on 

adolescents and the juvenile 

justice system. While 

finishing her doctorate she 

worked for almost three years 

with the National Juvenile 

Defender Center to 

strengthen their capacity to 

utilize developmental science 

in training and policy 

advocacy efforts to improve 

the legal representation of 

youth in the juvenile justice 

system. 

We’re excited to have Jaime 

working on the NJJEC 

project! 

We’d also like to thank 

Rebecca Stabile, a part-time 

Research Analyst with JRSA, 

for stepping in and doing a 

great job producing this 

month’s newsletter. Thanks 

Becca!

Do you have a suggestion for 

a new webinar topic or 

resource? Email 

njjec@jrsa.org! 

Upcoming Events of 

Interest

2014 Safe Schools 

Conference

October 8–9, 2014

The Center for Safe Schools

will hold its 2014 conference 

in Grantville, Pennsylvania 

on October 8th and 9th. The 

conference is designed to 

provide quality professional 

development opportunities 

for school administrators and 

personnel, school resource 

officers, local law 

enforcement, and other 

community partners. More 

information is available 

online. 
NJJEC Bulletin Page 2

Victim Advocacy Training

November 4–6, 2014

This training, sponsored by National 

Children’s Advocacy Center, will be held in 

Huntsville, AL from November 4 through 6. 

It is designed for victim advocates who are 

working with children and families in a 

Child Advocacy Center setting. The training 

will include sessions on understanding the 

CJS, dynamics of child abuse, crisis 

development and resolution, intervention 

strategies, and other related topics. More 

information on session topics and 

registration information can be found 

online.

National Youth-At-Risk Conference

November 6–8, 2014

The National Youth At-Risk Conference,

held by the National Youth-At-Risk Center 

of Georgia Southern University, will be in 

Las Vegas, NV from November 6 through 8. 

This conference will train adults who serve 

youth to create safe, healthy, caring, and 

intellectually empowering educational 

environments. Registration information is 

available online. 

10th Annual Global Youth Justice 

Training Institute

December 2–4, 2014

Global Youth Justice will host its 10th Global 

Youth Justice Training Institute in Las 

Vegas, NV from December 2 through 4. 

Participants will learn strategies to establish 

or enhance local youth justice diversion 

programs through teen, student, youth, and 

peer courts and peer juries. Registration 

information is available online. 

Featured Resources: Webinars

Presented by the National Reentry 

Resource Center, “What Works to Promote 

Success for Youth in the Juvenile Justice 

System” is a two-part webinar series 

detailing strategies that have shown success 

for individuals in the juvenile justice 

system. Part One is designed to teach 

participants the major principles that guide 

the juvenile justice system, and how to 

implement these principles effectively. Part 

Two takes a more analytic approach, 

summarizing the problems faced when 

trying to measure juvenile justice 

recidivism, and offering recommendations 

for improving data collection and 

measurement.

The Coalition for Juvenile Justice and the 

National Juvenile Justice Network

presented a webinar on the implementation 

of evidence-based services. The Webinar 

presenters discussed various evidencebased strategies that have been proven 

effective for use in juvenile justice systems, 

such as methods to create agency, 

strategies to address funding challenges, 

and lessons learned from other states.

The National League of Cities presented the 

“Municipal Leadership for Juvenile Justice 

Reform Webinar Series,” intended to 

‘highlight locally-led community-based 

alternatives to arrest, prosecution and 

detention for youth, provide concrete tools 

and guidelines for collecting and using data 

to drive city reforms, and support cross-city 

sharing of policies, practices and ideas on 

these and other innovations.’ 

The Defending Childhood initiative, in 

conjunction with OJJDP and Futures 

Without Violence, presented “From 
NJJEC Bulletin Page 3

Associates to Allies: Forging Public Sector 

Partnerships that Prevent Violence.” This 

webinar was designed to demonstrate how 

governments and communities can work in 

tandem to prevent violence that affects and 

that is committed by youth. 

Featured Evaluation:

OJJDP’s Model Programs Guide

OJJDP’s Model Programs Guide is an online 

resource of evidence-based juvenile justice and 

youth prevention/intervention programs. 

Recently, three new literature reviews were 

added to the guide:

• Commercial sexual exploitation of 

children/sex trafficking

• LGBTQ youths in the juvenile justice 

system

• Alternatives to detention and confinement

These literature reviews detail relevant 

research and evaluations and offer program 

profiles, information on implementation, and 

resource links. More information and the full 

guide can be found on OJJDP’s website.

Featured Programs:

School-Based Behavior Programs

The Good Behavior Game

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a teambased behavior management strategy that 

helps teach young students to cope with the 

demands of a classroom such as sitting still, 

paying attention, and completing schoolwork. 

In GBG classrooms, teachers divide the 

students into teams, keeping gender and 

behavior levels evenly dispersed. Teams 

receive a reward if members do not break 

classroom rules more than four times 

throughout the game. Initially, players are 

rewarded immediately, but as the game 

progresses they must wait longer to receive 

their reward. Every team is able to win, and 

the game forces students to work together to 

monitor their own and their teammates’

behavior, thus creating a positive learning 

environment. 

GBG has been proven to “reduce aggressive, 

disruptive behavior and increase on-task 

behavior for students by the end of first 

grade, and lower the age of first-time 

smoking for students by middle school. 

Additionally, it has also been proven to 

reduce students’ use of mental health and 

behavioral services from 1st grade through 

young adulthood.” These results come from 

classroom implementation in school districts 

across the country, including in Baltimore, 

MD, Colorado, Washington, DC and 

Nebraska.

More information about the Good Behavior 

Game can be found on their website.

Linking the Interests of Families and 

Teachers

Developed by the Oregon Social Learning 

Center, the Linking the Interests of Families 

and Teachers program (LIFT) is an 

intervention program, designed for 

elementary school students living in at-risk 

neighborhoods, that addresses two primary 

issues: aggressive and other problem 

behaviors of students towards peers and 

teachers; and poor parenting practices,

including inconsistent discipline and lax 

supervision. 

LIFT is composed of three main elements: 

classroom social skills training through 

biweekly one-hour sessions, Good Behavior 

Game during play time, and parent 

management training through weekly 21⁄2 
`

hour sessions. Additionally, it facilitates 

communication between parents and teachers 

through the use of a special phone line in 

each classroom called the LIFT line, which 

parents can use to relay any questions or 

concerns they have for the teacher, and 

teachers can use to relay messages to parents 

about classroom activities. 

LIFT has been shown to reduce child physical 

aggression and long-term substance use, 

improve mother behavior, and improve 

teacher ratings of child social behavior. These 

results come from evaluations of the LIFT 

program in Oregon.

For more information about the Linking the 

Interests of Families and Teachers program, 

please visit their website at 

http://www.oslc.org/about/bestpractice.html. 

Positive Action

The Positive Action (PA) program is designed 

to improve academic performance, behavior 

and character in youths. PA relies on 

children’s innate motivation toward positive 

behavior patterns, and teaches skills to 

achieve and maintain positive behaviors. It 

emphasizes a cyclical thought process in 

which “positive thoughts lead to positive 

actions, positive actions lead to positive 

feelings about oneself, and positive feelings 

lead to more positive thoughts,” referred to 

as the ‘thought-actions-feelings’ circle. 

PA addresses a wide variety of problems, 

including but not limited to: substance use, 

violent and disruptive behavior, bullying, and 

academic problems. Schools, families and 

communities that participate in the PA 

program receive a portfolio which includes 

scripted lessons that incorporate the 

program’s philosophy and emphasis on the 

‘thoughts-actions-feelings’ circle into various 

topics including problem solving, selfcontrol, honesty, and decision making.

Compared to a control group of students who 

did not participate in PA, students who did 

participate reported lower lifetime substance 

use, lifetime violent behavior, and problem 

behaviors. PA has also been shown to reduce 

bullying and disruptive behaviors. These 

results come from evaluations of PA 

conducted in schools in Florida, Hawaii, 

Illinois, and Nevada.

For more information about the Positive 

Action program, visit their website at 

http://www.positiveaction.net.

NJJEC Bulletin Page 4

The 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.