About the Juvenile Justice Applied Leadership Network

The Applied Lead­er­ship Net­work is aligned around the fol­low­ing result: All youth in con­tact with the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem are treat­ed equi­tably and thrive in their homes, schools and communities.

Achiev­ing this requires strong lead­ers with the com­pe­ten­cies to achieve pow­er­ful, mea­sur­able and equi­table results for the peo­ple who face the steep­est bar­ri­ers to suc­cess. This pro­gram devel­ops those skills in teams deter­mined to improve out­comes for youth who may encounter the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem in their respec­tive jurisdictions.

Dur­ing the pro­gram, the teams will iden­ti­fy a spe­cif­ic and mean­ing­ful change with­in their juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem and com­mu­ni­ty and devise, imple­ment, refine and mon­i­tor a results action plan to achieve it. Teams that focus on build­ing and sus­tain­ing a com­mu­ni­ty-based con­tin­u­um of pre­ven­tion, diver­sion and pos­i­tive sup­port ser­vices for youth, par­tic­u­lar­ly youth of col­or, are encour­aged to apply.

The pro­gram is built on the Casey Foundation’s approach to lead­er­ship devel­op­ment called Results Count^®. While bal­anc­ing the demands of their cur­rent posi­tions, team mem­bers par­tic­i­pate in sem­i­nars, learn­ing Results Count skills and tools while they are accel­er­at­ing an actu­al piece of work and apply­ing the results-dri­ven approach they are learn­ing in real time. The teams receive coach­ing from fac­ul­ty and peers, which is par­tic­u­lar­ly valu­able to strength­en­ing strate­gies by expos­ing blind spots and over­com­ing obstacles.

Applied Lead­er­ship Net­work Class 5 Goals

• Accel­er­ate and achieve equi­table, pow­er­ful and tan­gi­ble results for youth in con­tact with the juve­nile jus­tice system.
• Engage cross-sec­tor youth- and fam­i­ly-serv­ing sys­tems to reduce young people’s path­ways into the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem and increase their oppor­tu­ni­ties to thrive into adult­hood in their communities.
• Strength­en part­ner­ships between com­mu­ni­ty and sys­tem lead­ers — includ­ing youth and fam­i­lies who have been affect­ed direct­ly by the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem — on behalf of young people.
• Pro­mote com­mu­ni­ty-led and com­mu­ni­ty-sup­port­ed respons­es to pre­dictable ado­les­cent mis­be­hav­ior out­side of the court system.
• Devel­op the ranks of skilled and moti­vat­ed lead­ers com­mit­ted to help­ing young peo­ple real­ize their poten­tial, even when they make mis­takes and vio­late the law in seri­ous ways.
• Edu­cate and inform deci­sion-mak­ers and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers about youth devel­op­ment, com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment and equi­table oppor­tu­ni­ties relat­ing to juve­nile justice.

Core Com­pe­ten­cies

Results Count lead­er­ship is built on five core com­pe­ten­cies that the Foun­da­tion believes all lead­ers — regard­less of their role or posi­tion with­in orga­ni­za­tions — need to con­tribute to mea­sur­ably bet­ter out­comes. Dis­cus­sions, exer­cis­es, teach­ings and prac­tice around the fol­low­ing core com­pe­ten­cies will be woven into both group work and indi­vid­ual activities:

• Be account­able for equi­table results, estab­lish­ing clear tar­gets and using data to assess progress and change course as needed.
• Work for racial equi­ty, rec­og­niz­ing that race, class and cul­ture affect out­comes and oppor­tu­ni­ties for chil­dren, youth and young adults.
• Use one­self as an instru­ment of change to move a result, based on the belief that indi­vid­ual lead­ers are capa­ble of lead­ing from what­ev­er posi­tion they hold.
• Mas­ter the skills of adap­tive lead­er­ship, which makes lead­ers aware of the impact of val­ues, habits, beliefs, atti­tudes and behav­iors asso­ci­at­ed with tak­ing action to improve results.
• Col­lab­o­rate with oth­ers, under­stand­ing that the capac­i­ty to build con­sen­sus and make group deci­sions enables lead­ers to align their actions and move work for­ward to achieve results.

Pro­gram Delivery

Between Octo­ber 2023 and Novem­ber 2024, teams from select­ed juris­dic­tions will par­tic­i­pate in six two-and-one-half-day in-per­son sem­i­nars sup­ple­ment­ed by coach­ing and prac­tice calls between ses­sions. Pro­gram fac­ul­ty will also con­duct a site vis­it with each team to deep­en the appli­ca­tion of the Results Count frame­work by the team and their part­ners. A boost­er ses­sion will be held in ear­ly 2025. All team mem­bers are expect­ed to attend all sem­i­nars. See Sem­i­nar Dates for the calendar.

Fol­low­ing an arc of learn­ing based on the prac­tice of ​“learn-review-apply-reflect,” the sem­i­nars are oppor­tu­ni­ties for team mem­bers to acquire, inte­grate and apply learn­ing and pre­pare to share it with col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ners in their home juris­dic­tions. These ses­sions advance the teams’ results work, explore real-time lead­er­ship chal­lenges and pro­vide the oppor­tu­ni­ty for peer con­sul­ta­tion and expert insight.

Net­work Staff and Faculty

Fac­ul­ty mem­bers for this cohort include:

• Gail D. Mum­ford, Senior Asso­ciate, Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Bar­bara Squires, Direc­tor, Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Dante Green, Pro­gram Asso­ciate, Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Stephen Jenk­ins, Pro­gram Assis­tant, Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Valerie Thomp­son, Faculty
• James Czar­ni­ak, Faculty
• Guest Pre­sen­ters (with exper­tise in results-dri­ven lead­er­ship and/​or juve­nile justice)

ALN Alum­ni

Cur­rent­ly there are 53 ALN alum­ni across 21 states. When the mem­bers of Class 5 com­plete the pro­gram, they will join the alum­ni net­work. Through peer sup­port and a col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing mod­el, ALN alum­ni con­tin­ue to build their own lead­er­ship and mod­el the use of a results-dri­ven frame­work in their home organizations.