Proposals Sought for 2017 JDAI Inter-Site Conference

The Casey Foun­da­tion will hold its largest juve­nile jus­tice gath­er­ing to date in April 2017 when it hosts more than 900 pol­i­cy­mak­ers and prac­ti­tion­ers in Orlan­do, Flori­da, for the 23^rd Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive (JDAI) Inter-Site Conference.

The three-day con­fer­ence will present more than 40 work­shops cov­er­ing a range of juve­nile jus­tice top­ics, and the Foun­da­tion is accept­ing work­shop pro­pos­als through Jan­u­ary 20, 2017. Pro­pos­als should offer mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives in a sin­gle work­shop, either to illus­trate how var­i­ous juris­dic­tions have approached a sim­i­lar issue or to reflect a broad­er array of opin­ions about key poli­cies and prac­tices. Strong appli­ca­tions will high­light juve­nile jus­tice reform in action, lift up new inno­va­tions in pol­i­cy and prac­tice and mod­el inclu­sion of mul­ti­ple voic­es and perspectives.

The con­fer­ence is meant to inspire atten­dees to more ful­ly and faith­ful­ly imple­ment juve­nile jus­tice reform strate­gies, expand the reform tool­box and be inten­tion­al about sus­tain­ing the reforms and the col­lab­o­ra­tive, data-dri­ven approach that has been at the heart of JDAI’s success.

Gail D. Mum­ford, a senior asso­ciate at the Foun­da­tion, says what inspires her about the con­fer­ence is ​“being in the pres­ence of prac­ti­tion­ers who know the per­ils and chal­lenges of this work and yet they con­tin­ue because it’s about the chil­dren!” She con­sid­ers the con­fer­ence to be a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for a select group of prac­ti­tion­ers to exchange infor­ma­tion and learn from their peers.

The con­fer­ence also will com­mem­o­rate JDAI’s 25^th anniver­sary by host­ing the anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion in Flori­da, the home of juve­nile jus­tice reforms that ini­tial­ly inspired the initiative.

The con­fer­ence itself is by invi­ta­tion only, but the mate­r­i­al from the con­fer­ence will be avail­able to every­one online.

Casey’s Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive has become the stan­dard of prac­tice for how local jus­tice sys­tems nation­wide han­dle the crit­i­cal front end of the juve­nile court process. Par­tic­i­pat­ing sites con­tin­ue to report impres­sive results in reduc­ing reliance on deten­tion of court-involved youth await­ing court hear­ings or pend­ing place­ment to cor­rec­tion­al pro­grams, and they have done so while pro­tect­ing pub­lic safe­ty and safe­guard­ing tax­pay­er dollars.