Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Meeting

Subcommittee on Programs and Practice

Overview 

The Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Programs and 

Practice Subcommittee has met three times—June 28, July 26, and August 23--since the last full 

Coordinating Council meeting on April 19, 2023. The subcommittee recently gained several 

new participants and now includes a total of twenty-six members, representing eleven federal 

offices, one independent organization, and five practitioners from the field. 

Discussions over the course of the subcommittee’s three most recent meetings have focused 

on identifying areas of possible collaboration around programs and practices that support 

youth and families. Given the current crisis in youth mental health and in light of 

recommendations from the youth panel featured at the Coordinating Council’s October 2022

meeting, the subcommittee agreed to focus on ways that members might work together to 

more effectively address youth mental health issues and the federal programs and practices 

that impact these issues. As a supplement to information gathered in October, the 

subcommittee referred to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental 

Health, which includes such recommendations as:

• Incentivizing coordination across grant programs.

• Improving coordination across all levels of government to address mental health needs.

• Emphasizing the importance of partnerships.

• Braiding and blending funds.

• Emphasizing the importance of training.

• Highlighting the importance of childhood trauma and ACES.

• Understanding sustainability when working with training and technical assistance 

providers and grant programs.

Moving forward, members noted that it will be important to examine how these 

recommendations overlay with recommendations received from the Council’s October youth 

panel, which the group had previously agreed would serve as its guidepost.

The subcommittee also agreed that to further any work on youth mental health (or other issue 

areas), it will be critical to ensure continued input and participation from external entities 

including researchers, practitioners, youth, families, and other stakeholders. At the 

subcommittee’s next meeting the group will engage in continued discussion on potential 

options to achieve this goal. 

Several subcommittee members indicated a willingness to serve on working groups that could:

1. develop recommendations for the larger group on a process to ensure ongoing input 

from youth, researchers, practitioners and other key stakeholders; and/or
2. study key issue areas in greater detail with the goal of developing more specific 

recommendations for Council action.

This possibility will be explored more fully as the group moves forward.

In addition, pursuant to decisions made at the full Council’s last meeting in April 2023, the

Programs and Practice Subcommittee anticipates that in the near future, it will begin more 

substantive planning discussions around co-sponsorship of the OJJDP National Conference in 

November 2024. 
Programs and Practice Subcommittee Members:

Kellie Blue

Co-Chair

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Sonali Nijhawan

Co-Chair

AmeriCorps

Kathryn Barry

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Jennifer Bastress Tahmasebi

AmeriCorps

Andrea Bizzell

U.S. Department of Labor

Jon Berg

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Amiyah Davis

Practitioner Member

Sherene Donaldson

U.S. Department of Education

Greg Henschel

U.S. Department of Education

Cheri Hoffman

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Brandon Horning

U.S. Department of Labor

Shannon Horrillo

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Lisa Johnson

FHI 360
Nataki MacMurray

Office of National Drug Control Policy

Michael Mendoza

Practitioner Member

Sarah Oberlander

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Mark Patterson

Practitioner Member

Maria-Lana Queen

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Dawn Rains

U.S. Department of Education

Judge Renee Rodriguez-Betancourt

Practitioner Member

Liz Simons

Practitioner Member

Deborah Spitz

U.S. Department of Education

Adam Tierney

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Lisa Trivits

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Shaina Vanek

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Rebecca Zornick

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration