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Juvenile Programming
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The Ogle County Juvenile Justice Council Three Year Summary History: The Ogle County Juvenile Justice Council was established in 2001 in accordance with the Illinois Juvenile Court Act. This Act was reformed in part to establish the Balanced and Restorative Justice Initiative, as well as direct Illinois Counties to establish County Juvenile Justice Councils to develop a county juvenile justice plan based upon utilization of the resources”. In Ogle County, our strongest supporters were originally our juvenile justice partners. Due to this, the council works closely with the Ogle County Probation Department, the Ogle County State’s Attorney and the Juvenile Judge. The mission statement of the council is “To protect the community from crimes committed by minors through the promotions, establishment, education, and interagency coordination of community-based programs for families and minors designed to prevent unlawful and delinquent behavior and to incorporate principles of the Balanced and Restorative Justice Model, which holds each minor directly accountable for his or her behavior”.
The past three years: Over the past three years the Ogle County Juvenile Justice Council has worked to achieve several goals.
The first was improving local governance by strengthening our County Juvenile Justice Council. Activities included: hiring a part-time staff person to oversee the Juvenile Justice Council, reviewing and enhancing the council’s by-laws, forming several sub-committees, and increasing our council membership. The Executive Committee has changed the bylaws to not only reflect our current structure but also to increase fiscal accountability. Through new committees and outreach in the community we have been able to attract new stakeholders to the council, expanding from a primary judicial based group of people to include a collaboration of service agencies, schools, local police departments, and faith based groups. Community outreach is a slow ongoing process and thanks to our strong Executive Board, we have been able to attract and maintain a diverse council. Copies of our membership, committees, bylaws, and fiscal policies are available at your request.
We believe that developing a strong Juvenile Justice Council in a rural setting presents unique challenges. Our Council and Executive Board have embraced this philosophy. As a result, we have spent significant time sharing our story with other counties and jurisdictions. We believe we have demonstrated how to effectively organize a Juvenile Justice Council and identify obstacles that may be faced. We have shared samples of our materials, as well as provided technical assistance and insight in the development of a Juvenile Justice Council to Winnebago County, Dekalb County, the 2nd Circuit, Lee County, and Peoria.
As a result of his strong leadership, Ben Roe, Ogle County State’s Attorney has been asked to spend significant time promoting and encouraging involvement from other State’s Attorney offices across Illinois by participating in many conferences and meetings like:
Ben Roe’s participation in these events demonstrates the commitment Ogle County has to true reform and becoming a model for other rural jurisdictions.
Once Ogle County accomplished the development of a strong diverse council and established an executive director to drive the work forward; the council was able to begin working on other goals and priorities. Creating a Juvenile Justice Plan was initially high on the list of priorities, so the council began to focus on understanding the needs of the community. The University of Illinois was contacted to conduct an assessment of the needs and services of at risk youth in the county; it was thought the assessment would provide answers and direction. The needs assessment was successful in creating a starting point for our community resource directory, which we now have posted on our website www.oglejjc.org . It was also helpful in establishing demographic information about our community. In addition, it pointed out possible reporting errors and inconsistencies that were able to be corrected or explained among our schools with graduation rates; law enforcement reporting crime stats; and the probation department’s caseload re: ethnic percentages. The assessment did not, however, point out glaring concerns. The planning committee then decided to reach out to the public and our full council to gain insight on “What the community felt were the top ten needs of our community.” This process is exhausting, but it is providing valuable insight to the needs in our community and our juvenile justice system. We continue to make progress on our strategic plan. After consulting with national experts, the council has decided to place on file the strategic plan used to report information to Models for Change and create a reader friendly annual community report card that will be presented to the community every year. Every year the report card will be different and the goal will be to provide ongoing education and report trends to our community. We anticipate complete community by in as the council, which reflects our community, will make the decision each year on what to report and what to measure. The first annual community report card is due out spring of 2010. Instead of providing each person with a lengthy annual report, a test report card was created and used to educate county board members. The County Board responded well to the report card. The full annual report was still completed and put on file for review as requested.
Another goal was to increase community awareness of the activities of the council through the development of a web-site, printed material and responding to community needs. We developed a website and print material for distribution and to use in branding our Council in the community. Our local website can be viewed at www.oglejjc.org. The website is a not a onetime endeavor, it is a living document that we constantly change to reflect the needs of the council, members and committees; local programming and services available in the community; and the educational needs of parents and youth. While the website looks professional, the website format was selected to be easily manipulated by staff. Our website continues to change and is intertwined in the work of several of our sub committees. Our members continue to spread the word about our Council. We find ourselves averaging a presentation to a community group at least once a month. While we are pleased with our initial efforts, we realize in a rural county covering 759 square miles and a population over 55,000 people; we still have a lot of people to educate.
The strong judicial involvement has enabled the Executive Board to begin challenging policies in relation to how we handle juvenile cases. Our first priority was to create a better system for evaluating cases. The first step was assembling a diverse case processing team. Previously, the Deputy Director of the Probation Department and the Assistant State’s Attorney met on an as needed basis to review police reports. Together, they decided which cases would be filed after reading arrest reports. While a handful of cases were referred for VOC’s every year, diversion at this point simply meant no file. A goal became to address this by examining our entire system and engaging our local law enforcement to inform us of every juvenile police contact. Several stakeholders were included in the planning stage, the Executive Director of our Council, the Ogle County State’s Attorney, the Juvenile Court Judge, a member of our Public Defender’s Office, the Director of Court Services and representatives from local law enforcement agencies. As a result, a police contact form, a case processing protocol, a memorandum of understanding, and a MAYSI administration protocol have all been put into place.
The police contact form is used by all law enforcement agencies with every juvenile. The contact form combines several past forms into one to reduce the amount of paperwork, while providing all necessary information, so appropriate actions can be taken. In addition, the forms inform youth of their right to expungement, which is a requirement of all arresting agencies. The contact information is being entered into a excel spread sheet. We are receiving data for the first time. We are able to sort and organize this data according to our needs. In the future, we will be entering information into a more advanced computer program that will allow for multiple sites to begin collecting and sorting data. By the end of our 4th year, we should be able to produce data on youth diverted from the system and youth on the opposite end of the spectrum (at the Reporting Center and Focus House)
The case processing protocol addresses how all juvenile police reports will be handled and assessed. As a result, BARJ programming has dramatically expanded. A pivotal piece was hiring a part-time BARJ coordinator. Through our BARJ programming we currently divert 2/3 of all juvenile police arrest reports. Our BARJ menu of services includes community outreach; behavior contracts; worksheets that address apologies, impact of their behavior, and confrontation; weekly reports on individual and family activities; Cog Groups; Restitution; Community Service; Community Impact Panels, and Victim Offender Conferencing.
Cases that do result in a petition being filed are now screened at the earliest point of entry using the MAYSI-2. A social history is completed pre- adjudication and provided to the assigned Public Defender and the family, so needed services can be started immediately. Information received from the assessment helps determine whether the youth could benefit from a variety of services, including mental health therapy, treatment for drug addictions and family counseling. Because information gained from the assessment is not shared with prosecutors, county probation officials can help counsel juveniles without violating any of their rights, and the juveniles can talk frankly without fear of self-incrimination. This process is a result of our MOU.
A MAYSI-2 protocol has been developed. It addresses how the MAYSI 2 will be administered based on where the youth is in the delinquency process. All counselors/therapist, diversion workers and probation officers have been trained on administering the MAYSI2. Through this improved screening and assessment process youth may either be diverted from juvenile court or receive more effective treatment at the earliest entry point in the system. The Probation officers will use the MAYSI -2, in conjunction with the YASI, to better match services and therapies to needs of the youth.
Samples of all these forms and protocols are available at your request.
Another achievement was beginning a juvenile expungement program. We inform youth of their rights to expungement at the point of arrest via the Police contact sheets and upon successful completion of court supervision or probation. If an eligible youth wants to pursue expungement, we have material available and will help guide them thru the process. Our Council believes having a juvenile record can make it hard to get a job, a place to live, credit, licenses needed to do some types of jobs and student loans. Getting the record expunged may help remove these barriers. Each achievement seems to lead us into our next goal or project. We feel we have now set the stage for implementing a family engagement piece. In our final year, we plan to implement the family engagement piece. We are currently visiting other counties that are using nationally recognized models to identify the correct model for our community.
Improved quality assurance is the final major accomplishment that Ogle County is working on within the probation department in conjunction with the Carey Group. The Carey Group was specifically chosen due to the work because of their belief in evidenced –based practices as well as their belief that data collection should drive decision making. The Carey Group will assist us by incorporating a Quality Assurance Model at all levels of our department. To date, we have worked with the Carey Group on the mapping of our existing programs. We will continue to work with them on implementing a full quality assurance piece that includes the evaluation of not only our services but our vendors.
As a result of strengthening our council and reaching out to new stakeholders in the community some surprising miscellaneous programs and efforts have materialized over the last year.
After meeting with the schools, we developed the Alternative to Suspension Program. Certain infractions or incidents of school rules can result in a student being suspended. The Alternative to Suspension Program has been designed to offer a supervised environment, which helps the juveniles learn the consequences of their behavior, while offering a non judicial resolution. Each Juvenile is eligible to participate in the program two times during each school year. Acceptance of the program will reduce initial suspension by half. This program takes place at our Reporting Center.
After meeting with Law Enforcement, we developed a diversion pamphlet that Law Enforcement carry in the squad car. The pamphlet is offered to parents and youth that have low level contact with officers for minor offenses.
After meeting with local services agencies, we developed a traveling school conference that addresses local trends in the community. The groups of local services providers work with our schools to educate parents and youth about stalking, prescriptions drugs, internet bullying, and other topics that are affecting the youth in the Ogle County Community. Future Work: The past three years have been exhausting, exciting and insightful. Our council is headed in a direction that we never would have anticipated three years ago. As our council continues to build relationships in the community, long term goals are beginning to be identified. Improving data collection will always be a top priority as we use it to guide decisions and document the effectiveness of programming. Another priority will be the collaboration of service providers amongst in dually involved youth. Until recently, our juvenile justice council did not have any representation from our state child welfare agency (DCFS). It is the concern of our council that on a local level our child welfare partners and juvenile justice partners do not work collaboratively. And finally, we are recognizing the importance of holding service providers accountable. In the future we may need to make difficult fiscal decisions to improve service delivery to clients that may affect current collaborative relationships.
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