Blog: News

Formerly a project director for the Crossroads site in North Carolina (representing Surry, Iredell, and Yadkin Counties), Candice Moore will lead North Carolina’s State Reclaiming Futures Office, which currently includes 14 Reclaiming Futures sites in 29 counties.

Moore’s professional experience with Reclaiming Futures stretches back to when she was one of the original grant writers that helped lay the groundwork for the model in the Crossroads site.

In 2008, with investment from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust (KBR), North Carolina established a six site Reclaiming Futures pilot. Due to the progress made by these sites, North Carolina established a public-private partnership with support from the NC Division of Juvenile Justice, KBR and the Governor’s Crime Commission to launch the first state office of Reclaiming Futures. In 2013, The Duke Endowment funded four additional sites and KBR funded two more.

As a project director for Reclaiming Futures’ Crossroads site, Moore worked with both urban and rural sites, three different judicial districts, multiple judges and more than 10 providers.

“That really taught me how to maneuver and facilitate multiple sites. My work as a project director showed me how to pull people together and be an effective boundary-spanner,” explains Moore. Prior to her work with Reclaiming Futures, Moore worked on the juvenile justice side as a court counselor, which has also strengthened her collaboration with counselors now.

The state office will continue to be stationed in Raleigh, where Moore will spend part of her time, but she will lead the bulk of the work from her office in Winston-Salem, where KBR and the evaluation team are also situated.

Moore will be accompanied by a new second position that will focus on data management and quality improvement for juvenile justice and Reclaiming Futures in North Carolina.

“My goals for my new position are to ensure that the features of the Reclaiming Futures model are institutionalized across the state of North Carolina—meaning that we set comprehensive training plans, strengthen partnerships among our agencies, ensure fidelity, measure outcomes, and implement evidence-based practices,” explains Moore. “Once we establish that, the long-range plan is to expand the model to all 100 North Carolina counties.”

Below is a snapshot of the impact of North Carolina sites since January 2013:

• 7,888 (82.6% of eligible youth) were screened using the GAIN-SS
• 906 youth completed a full assessment (80% indicated the need for treatment)
• 72.5% of youth in need of treatment successfully initiated treatment. 70% of those initiating treatment did so within the 14 days targeted by the model.
• 86.4% of youth that initiated treatment fully engaged in services.
• 35% of these youth discharged from treatment successfully completed treatment and 15% were referred for additional treatment

The improvement in local processes is resulting in positive outcomes for youth. Of youth discharged:

• 61.3% were involved in pro-social activities
• 85.3% had one or more positive adult relationship
• 80.0% reduced or abstained from substance use
• 71.0% improved mental health functioning

We’re thrilled to welcome Candice into her new role leading the State Office for Reclaiming Futures in North Carolina, and look forward to continuing the positive momentum she and her predecessor Jessica Jones put into motion.

A new toolkit, published by the Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit (CBAU) at the Vera Institute of Justice, will help guide government agencies as they assess their justice investments: Cost-Benefit Analysis and Justice Policy Toolkit.

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is an evaluation technique that compares the costs of programs with the benefits they deliver—allowing agencies to determine the best use of budget regarding justice policies and programs.

Advocates of juvenile justice reform can use CBA briefs to spark change, as the briefs can serve as concrete examples to share with policy and decision makers when encouraging investments.

This new toolkit outlines the six fundamental steps of conducting a CBA:

1. Identify the investment’s potential impacts.
2. Quantify the investment’s impacts.
3. Determine marginal costs.
4. Calculate costs, benefits, and net present value.
5. Test the assumptions.
6. Report the results.

The toolkit provides real word lessons and examples from six municipal, county, and state agencies in each step and is designed to guide justice analysts, especially those who are new to CBA.

Note: This project was supported by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Study: Ohio Diversion Program Decreases Delinquency (JJIE)
  Most offenders ages 10 to 18 with mental health and behavioral problems who were diverted from detention centers to a treatment program in Ohio over an eight-year period showed decreases in future delinquency, a study shows.

• Reducing Youth Incarceration in Rhode Island (Providence Journal)
  A new Justice Policy Institute report, Sticker Shock: Calculating the Full Price Tag of Youth Incarceration, shows that Rhode Island is one of 33 states that pay more than $100,000 to incarcerate a single young person for a year. In fiscal year 2013, the total was $186,000, about 13 times what it costs to educate a student for one year in Rhode Island.

• NCJFCJ Receives $10.3 Million to Improve Outcomes for Children and Families Nationwide in 2014 (Nevada Business)
  The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) received a total of $10.3 million, a 29 percent increase from the previous year, in new and continuing grants during the fiscal year ending in 2014.

• Acting Juvenile Justice Director Picked for Post (Charlotte Observer)
  Haley spokeswoman Chaney Adams said Thursday that Sylvia Murray will head the agency that oversees about 140 prisoners and another 8,500 juveniles in other disciplinary programs. It has some 1,400 employees.

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• 4 Things to Understand About Youth, Mental Health & Juvenile Justice (Forbes)
  Currently, lack of capacity and resources contributes to high recidivism rates and skyrocketing taxpayer burden. As we enter a new year, with a new Congress, it is important as a country that we think about the mental, physical and financial health of our country’s most vulnerable individuals: children. Here are four things to understand about our juvenile justice system, and our children that live within the system.

• Take Steps to Prevent Substance Abuse (Democrat & Chronicle)
  The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that for every dollar invested in prevention, a savings of up to $10 in treatment can be seen. When substance abuse can be prevented altogether, however, the savings in human potential are exponential.

• More Adults are Using Weed in the States that Legalized, But Teen Use is Flat (Washington Post)
  The national-level data from this study, released back in September, showed that drug and alcohol use rates among all Americans is essentially flat, while teen use is actually trending downward.

To celebrate 2014 as it comes to an end, here are Reclaiming Futures top five most popular blog posts of the year!

1. Watch: PBS Documentary “15 to Life”
   A new PBS Documentary “15 to Life” takes a close look at one man’s story to combat his life sentence after being convicted at age 15. Though Kenneth Young was convicted more than a decade ago for armed robbery, the S. Supreme Court ruled four years ago that a life in prison sentence without parole for a juvenile offender in a non-homicide case was unconstitutional.

2. For Young People Addicted to Painkillers, the Path Less Taken—Why?
   Mistakenly, many adolescents believe that Rx opioids are safe because they are prescribed by a doctor. But when abused, they can be as potent and as deadly as heroin. In fact, many teens and young adults who abuse Rx opioids move on to heroin abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls prescription drug abuse an "epidemic," and we see it as a public health issue that disproportionately impacts our kids.

3. The Emotional State of Poverty: A Powerful Photo Essay
   As a native of Troy who struggled with teen pregnancy, drugs and an unstable living environment, Kenneally returned to her hometown after getting sober and studying photojournalism to capture what she experienced as an emotional state of poverty.

4. End the Culture of Violence and Trauma: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Wants Your Ideas
   The Juvenile Law Center, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has released a report Trauma and Resiliencethat illustrates how systems and services can help children and families overcome the trauma they encounter.

5. Principles of Adolescent Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A Research-Based Guide
   Earlier this month, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), published a guide detailing a drug abuse approach that goes way beyond "Just Say No!" The guide, "Presents research-based principles of adolescent substance use disorder treatment; covers treatment for a variety of drugs including, illicit and prescription drugs, alcohol, and tobacco; presents settings and evidence-based approaches unique to treating adolescents."

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Expert: Juvenile Justice Report Will Spur Reform at Rikers Island (The Forum News Group)
  “This reform will promote better behavior, psychological health and emotional well-being among our youngest inmates while lessening violence,” Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte said. “It represents best practices and the least restrictive environment, allowing us to respond more appropriately to the special needs of this troubled population, and help them re-integrate into the community when they leave our care and custody.”

• No More Solitary Confinement for Adolescent Inmates in NYC (WABC New York)
  New York City has ended its longstanding practice of sending 16- and 17-year-old inmates to solitary confinement for breaking rules, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.

• MacArthur Lauds Juvenile Justice Reformers (JJIE)
  In a written letter to the award recipients, MacArthur Foundation interim President Julia Stasch said: “No movement proceeds on the strength of research alone. Reform is animated by the passion and tenacity of the people who make a cause their cause.”

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Conrad N. Hilton Foundation awards $1.35 million grant to Legal Action Center (Globe NewsWire)
  Through a $1.35 million grant over three years from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, LAC and its partners will evaluate how the full range of adolescent prevention and early intervention services are being offered and to what extent insurers are implementing these services. They also will educate service providers about federal confidentiality requirements crucial to encouraging youth to seek services.

• Teens turn to e-cigarettes as tobacco smoking hits 40-year low among school-aged youths (Michigan Live)
  A new University of Michigan study shows that tobacco use among high school-aged teens has fallen to the lowest it's been in the last 40 years, but kids have replaced traditional smoking habits with something experts say is still harmful to their health.

• LifeWise panel sheds light on youth alcohol abuse (Salt Lake City Weekly)
  Nebraska may offer the good life, but depending on which survey one is reading, its youth now rank from second to the fifth highest in the nation for binge drinking, higher than its surrounding Midwest states.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Teen Is Used to Being Behind Bars, Imagines Future There (JJIE)
  Ruben Rodriguez, a teen from the Bronx, is on Rikers Island, waiting to stand trial for homicide. By the time he returned to the Box (punitive segregation) in late September, City of New York Correction Department Commissioner Joseph Ponte publicly promised to end punitive segregation for Rikers’ roughly 300 juvenile inmates by 2015.

• Three States Lead the Way for Juvenile Justice Reforms (PewTrusts.org)
  State leaders from Georgia, Hawaii, and Kentucky discuss the shifting landscape in juvenile justice and how they enacted data-driven and fiscally sound policies that protect public safety, improve outcomes for youths, and contain correctional costs.

• Transferring Juveniles to Adult Justice System Detrimental (Indian Express)
  The provision of transferring juveniles between 16 and 18 years of age, accused of serious crimes, to the adult justice system was widely discussed and was found to be detrimental rather than effective at a national-level consultation between officials and experts — in the field of juvenile justice and child reforms — on the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) campus Saturday.

• CT Supreme Court Examining Long, Mandatory Sentences For Juveniles (Hartford Courant)
  Before Ackeem Riley was sentenced to at least 85 years in jail for his involvement in a 2006 gang-related, drive-by shooting in the North End of Hartford, the prosecutor said the teen "should never, ever be on the streets again." That was before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a trio of cases that a child's age and maturity should be considered before courts impose harsh sentences, and that state laws that strip judges of discretion when sentencing juvenile offenders constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
  

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Sugar Can Worsen Teens' Depression And Anxiety And Change How They React To Stress (Medical Daily)
  “It is alarming that the teen stress experience is so similar to that of adults. It is even more concerning that they seem to underestimate the potential impact that stress has on their physical and mental health,” APA CEO and Executive Vice President Norman B. Anderson said in a press release. “In order to break this cycle of stress and unhealthy behaviors as a nation, we need to provide teens with better support and health education at school and home, at the community level and in their interactions with health care professionals.”

• Rogers to Expand with New Clinics in Chicago and Nashville (Milwaukee BizTimes)
  The Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice unanimously approved a series of proposed reforms Wednesday intended to reduce prison population growth, including making drug possession a misdemeanor.

• What Brain Studies Reveal About the Risk of Adolescent Alcohol Use and Abuse (Medical Press)
  Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) are zeroing in on brain factors and behaviors that put teens at risk of alcohol use and abuse even before they start drinking.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Healing From Trauma: Girls in Juvenile Justice (Spark Action)
  Imagine being a child abused or neglected by someone you know, feeling unsafe in your own home, being betrayed by people who you should be able to trust. Where would you go? How would you cope with such traumatic experiences? For girls involved in the juvenile justice system, their options are very limited, and none of them would be seen as good choices from a middle class perspective.

• 14 Youths Indicted as Heartless Felons and Accused of Terrorizing Juvenile Detention Center (Cleveland.com)
  A Cuyahoga County grand jury Wednesday indicted 14 members of the Heartless Felons and accused them of terrorizing the Juvenile Detention Center for the past two years. The youths were originally charged in Juvenile Court, but their cases were bound over to Common Pleas Court, where they will be charged as adults.

• Former Connecticut Official Leads Institute on Youth Justice (Chronicle.com)
  "Connecticut has been at the forefront of juvenile-justice reform, and this is really a wonderful way to keep building on those reforms," Mr. Carbone says.
• California Takes on Harsh Discipline and Academic Inequities for Black, Latino Students (JJIE)
  As the national debate over childhood inequities sharpens, recent developments in California highlight struggles over practices critics say deprive some kids of quality class time and fuel a “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It’s free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Charlotte Hungerford Hospital Opens Center for Youth and Families (Litchfield County Times)
  The center’s clinical manager, Joan M. Neveski, said bringing the two facilities under one roof has been a multi-year effort. Neveski has been working with the hospital since 2007, returning after working at the there for eight years during a previous period.

• Untreated Mental Illness has a High Cost for the Kansas City Area (KansasCity.com)
  Now that the elections have passed, area lawmakers going to Washington, D.C., Jefferson City and Topeka in 2015 should read a Kansas City area report released this year on the untreated costs of mental illness.

• Children as Young as 12 Treated for Drug Abuse at Abu Dhabi Centre (The National UAE)
  Children as young as 12 years old are being treated for drug abuse at the National Rehabilitation Centre. In addition to the adults it deals with, the centre, which was launched in 2002, treats mostly male Emirati minors between the ages of 12 and 18.

• We Should All Be Ashamed (Huffington Post)
  Because of inadequate treatment and housing, the mentally ill are extremely vulnerable to arrest for avoidable nuisance crimes -- it is as simple as stealing some food from a store, sleeping on a bench in a public park, or shouting back at voices in the middle of the night.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Cultivating Better Futures for Troubled Bronx Youths (JJIE)
  They could have been locked up for offenses ranging from theft to assault to armed robbery. Instead, they planted vegetables at an urban farm, painted a mural to honor a community activist, staged a youth talent show, organized “safe parties” for teens at a local community center – away from the gunfire and stabbings outside.

• Focus on the Figures: Juvenile Felony Arrests, by Race (Chronicle of Social Change)
  Every other week, The Chronicle of Social Change will feature one key indicator from Kidsdata, which offers comprehensive data about the health and well being of children across California. In this installment, we examine the racial breakdown of juvenile felony arrest rate in California, perhaps the most diverse state in the union.

• 10-Year-Old Murder Defendant Shows Failure of U.S. Juvenile Justice System (Daily Beast)
  On Monday, prosecutors there charged a ten-year old boy as an adult for the murder of an elderly woman under the care of his grandfather—making him one of the youngest Americans ever to face a criminal homicide conviction.
• New Juvenile Court Judge Looks for “Balance” (Memphis Flyer)
  Citing the Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 37, Section 1, from which Juvenile Court derives its authority, Michael defined that role as one of providing “care and protection [and] wholesome moral, mental, and physical development’ of juveniles, while, “consistent with the protection of the public interest,” removing “from children committing delinquent acts the taint of criminality and the consequences of criminal behavior and substituting therefore a program of training, treatment, and rehabilitation.”

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It’s free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Link Between Underage Substance Use and Problems in Adulthood (SAMHSA)
  Children and adolescents who use alcohol and drugs at an early age are more likely to face problems with substance use as adults, according to a new SAMHSA Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Report.

• Proposal Would Rewrite Utah Drug Laws in a Major Way (Fox 13)
  “This is not final, but the bottom line is we need to find ways to get more drug possession offenders out of prison into community treatment programs that are appropriate and will address their specific needs,” said Ron Gordon, the executive director of CCJJ.

• Indiana Project Screenings Show Need for More Mental Health Services in Youth Detention (IUSM Newsroom)
  Indiana is at the forefront of providing mental health screening and services to juvenile offenders, but more efforts are needed to improve the services provided to detained youths, according to Indiana University School of Medicine research findings published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

In recognition of National Substance Abuse Prevention Month, I had the honor to contribute to the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s blog. Citing our Reclaiming Futures site in Snohomish County, Washington, I shared why we at Reclaiming Futures believe community involvement is critical to improve mental health and substance abuse treatment, and ultimately build stronger communities around prevention.

Read the full blog post here and contribute your thoughts below.

In Juvenile Justice, Community Involvement is Key to Substance Abuse Prevention

Local artists in Snohomish County, Washington, are contributing their time, tools, and studio space to mentor teens recently involved in their community’s juvenile justice system. For eight weeks, the youth will learn art and photography skills, then produce artwork documenting their lives, families, and communities. Some of their efforts will be featured in local art venues or the local newspaper.

The teens are participants in Promising Arts in Recovery (PAIR), part of Snohomish County’s local Reclaiming Futures program. The goal of PAIR is to establish social and job skills by connecting local artists with at-risk teens who are involved in the juvenile justice system and may be undergoing treatment for substance use or mental health issues. Through programs like PAIR that offer workshops, internships, or job-shadowing opportunities, local professionals are not only helping these young people develop skills necessary to be active citizens, they are helping to rebuild a community around prevention.

Read the full story.