Apply Now: The 2020 Reimagining Juvenile Justice Train-the-Trainer Institute

A pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment ini­tia­tive for state and local juve­nile jus­tice agen­cies and their part­ners is now accept­ing appli­ca­tions for the vir­tu­al 2020 Reimag­in­ing Juve­nile Jus­tice (RJJ) Train-the-Train­er Insti­tute. Spon­sored by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and deliv­ered by the School & Main Insti­tute, this train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty advances many core ele­ments of the Foundation’s vision for trans­form­ing juve­nile pro­ba­tion.

Appli­ca­tions must be received by 5 p.m. EDT, Sep­tem­ber 15, 2020.

The RJJ Train-the-Train­er Insti­tute is open to any state or local coali­tion of part­ners serv­ing youth involved in the jus­tice sys­tem. Sites par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Foundation’s Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive® (JDAI®) may apply, as well as oth­er juris­dic­tions seek­ing to improve sys­tem and youth out­comes by pro­vid­ing alter­na­tives to jus­tice sys­tem involve­ment and incar­cer­a­tion; instill­ing pos­i­tive pro­grams, sup­port and oppor­tu­ni­ties so that young peo­ple can devel­op to their full poten­tial; and increas­ing cross-sys­tem collaboration.

The 2020 insti­tute is the fourth iter­a­tion of the RJJ cur­ricu­lum, which was pilot­ed by SMI in Mass­a­chu­setts in 2016, repli­cat­ed at the Pima Coun­ty, Ari­zona, JDAI site in 2018 and expand­ed to a nation­al train­ing insti­tute with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 15 state and local juris­dic­tions in 2019. Because of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, this year’s insti­tute will be held vir­tu­al­ly through a series of online ses­sions, facil­i­tat­ed by School & Main and deliv­ered via Zoom with sup­port from the Pre­tri­al Jus­tice Institute.

Appli­cants must iden­ti­fy at least two and opti­mal­ly three indi­vid­u­als who will make up their local train­ing team and include juve­nile pro­ba­tion in the core lead­er­ship group and in the local train­ing cohort. Select­ed train­ers will agree to par­tic­i­pate in all required vir­tu­al train­ing ses­sions, to deliv­er the six RJJ cur­ricu­lum mod­ules in their local­i­ty between Jan­u­ary 2021 and Sep­tem­ber 2021 and pro­vide eval­u­a­tions and feed­back to the Casey Foun­da­tion and School & Main. Train­ers should plan for about 20 hours of online train­ing that will begin in Octo­ber 2020.

The RJJ train­ing cur­ricu­lum is based on ado­les­cent devel­op­ment research demon­strat­ing that youth thrive in a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment with the sup­port of car­ing adults. Between July 2019 and Jan­u­ary 2020, RJJ train­ers deliv­ered the course to over 450 pro­fes­sion­als rep­re­sent­ing a broad array of agen­cies and orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing pro­ba­tion, juve­nile deten­tion, child wel­fare, youth and fam­i­ly ser­vices, courts, local law enforce­ment, school dis­tricts, com­mu­ni­ty-based agen­cies and oth­ers involved in the youth jus­tice system.

“Ear­ly adopters cred­it the RJJ cur­ricu­lum with mak­ing their staff more recep­tive to oppor­tu­ni­ties for pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment for the young peo­ple they sup­port,” said David E. Brown, a senior asso­ciate at the Foun­da­tion. ​“Juris­dic­tions report they are pur­su­ing ini­tia­tives such as youth-led and adult-guid­ed coun­ty­wide advi­so­ry work­groups and more fam­i­ly-friend­ly dis­charge process­es for youth end­ing probation.”

One of the par­tic­i­pants, Jen­nifer Stin­son, a pro­ba­tion super­vi­sor in Racine, Wis­con­sin, remarked on the effect that the RJJ train­ing has had on the mind­set with­in her depart­ment. ​“See­ing how some of the case man­agers have been able to change their per­spec­tive has been great — see­ing staff move away from com­pli­ance check­ing to engag­ing more with the youth on their case­loads.” Stin­son not­ed that dra­mat­i­cal­ly few­er youth are being sent to deten­tion for pro­ba­tion violations.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, vis­it the RJJ 4.0 FAQ.

Apply for the RJJ Institute