FWSN-advisorybd-repo.. - The Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance

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majority of the funding from municipalities, private and public grants and fundraising donations. Where YSBs exist, the nature of services offered and staffing levels vary widely. • Neighborhood Youth Centers (NYC) Neighborhood Youth Centers are one example of the community-based programs funded through the Office of Policy and Management (OPM) Juvenile Justice and Youth Development. The funds are available from the JJDP Act grant programs. The NYCs receive funds through a competitive bidding process. The NYC is designed to increase the range and extent of positive experiences for at-risk youth. It serves youth ages twelve through seventeen who live in seven of Connecticut's largest cities, Bridgeport, Hartford, New Britain, New Haven, Norwalk, Stamford, and Waterbury. They offer athletic and recreational opportunities, enrichment or tutoring activities, skills training, and other preventive and intervention services for youth and their families. Much the same as YSBs and JRBs, there are variations in the services provided by Neighborhood Youth Centers. They only exist in the major cities, and so these services are not available in the other communities across Connecticut. • Urban Youth Violence Prevention The Governor’s Urban Youth Violence Prevention Program is a competitive program for municipalities and nonprofit agencies, the purpose of which is to reduce urban youth violence by providing grants for programs to serve youth ages 12 to 18 years in urban centers. It was created in 2007 by Section 9 of PA 07-4. Funding for this program ($1,500,000) comes from the state line item in the Office of Policy and Management’s budget entitled Urban Youth Violence Prevention and from the U. S. Department of Education to the Office of Policy and Management under the federal Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, Governor’s Portion. There were seventeen grant recipients of the funds recently announced. The grantees represent a variety of youth development approaches and strategies emphasizing skills, leadership development and parental involvement. Similar to other prevention initiatives, the grants funded only benefit ten cities/towns. The programs include employment, recreational, athletic and other initiatives for young people. This year, grants were awarded to four programs in Bridgeport, three programs in Hartford, two programs in New Haven and Norwalk and one program in each the cities/towns of Danbury, Enfield, Manchester, New Britain, New London and Waterbury. • School Attendance Grants/Connecticut Consortium on School Attendance The school attendance funding category supports school initiatives aimed at improving school attendance and helping children from Families with Service Needs (FWSN) who 31
are truant. The focus is to provide children with positive reinforcement that promotes school attendance, rather than emphasizing ways to reduce truancy, that may be fostered by systemic factors, such as suspensions and expulsions. Funds under this program, disbursed by the Consortium on School Attendance (OPM) are used to support program strategies in one of the following categories and include an evaluation component with a comparison group. • Making Attendance a Priority – building awareness and commitment to regular school attendance in school buildings, in homes, and in the broader community; • Establishing Effective Attendance Policies – ensuring that effective attendance policies are in place and enforced consistently across the district and within school buildings; • Implementing Programs – providing best practice prevention and intervention approaches. Some examples of recently funded program initiatives include enrichment activities such as study skills and time management exercises; a virtual alternative learning for students who are not succeeding in the traditional classroom setting as measured by their attendance, state test scores, and academic grades; a new Re-entry Transitional Classroom for students who are absent for 10 consecutive days or more in any one semester; the purchase of new organizational resources, incentives and behavior plans for students; parent workshops and professional development of staff. Unfortunately, distribution of these monies does not benefit every town and does not promote the development of a uniform approach to promoting school attendance. Instead, it promotes experimental or small scale programs with varying degrees of effectiveness. Other Truancy Diversion Services: In Connecticut, there are several pilot initiatives currently being used to divert students who are truant. They include: • School-based models in the New Haven and New London Public Schools, and the Connecticut Bar Association/Connecticut Bar Foundation Truancy Intervention Project in New Britain; • A law enforcement model in Hartford by the Hartford Police Department; • A mental health model operated by the Institute of Living, and a • Court model Truancy Court Prevention Project operated at a middle and high school in Hartford by the Center for Children’s Advocacy, Capitol Region Education Council and the Village for Families and Children. 11 11 The Truancy Court Prevention Project has been recognized as “A Model Truancy Prevention Program” by the American Bar Association. See www.abanet.org/crimjust/juvjus/truancypreventionprograms.doc. See also Mary Reimer and Kaki Dimick, “Best Practices in Action: Best Practices and Model Truancy Programs” National Dropout Prevention Center/Network, Clemson University (Clemson, S.C.) 2005. www.dropoutprevention.org 32
Page 1 and 2: Families with Service Needs Advisor
Page 3 and 4: VI. Other Key Recommendations Relat
Page 5 and 6: Report to the General Assembly from
Page 7 and 8: In addition, minor changes to the r
Page 9 and 10: RECOMMENDATION THREE PROVIDE FUNDS
Page 11 and 12: RECOMMENDATION FIVE MAKE NEEDED CHA
Page 13 and 14: The Advisory Board is recommending
Page 15 and 16: ased preventive programs 4. Flex fu
Page 17 and 18: B. Recommendations related to Truan
Page 19 and 20: D. System-wide Prevention Strategie
Page 21 and 22: Intervention for DCF youth residing
Page 23 and 24: gender responsive programming to as
Page 25 and 26: and organizations represented inclu
Page 27 and 28: and to added referral to community
Page 29 and 30: C. Young FWSN Children In 2006 ther
Page 31: • Juvenile Review Boards (JRB) A
Page 35 and 36: Presently, there is no data collect
Page 37 and 38: Juvenile probation officers provide
Page 39 and 40: The Family Support Center provides
Page 41 and 42: achievement and reentry. The progra
Page 43 and 44: Once the child is adjudicated as a
Page 45 and 46: DCF may petition the court for an e
Page 47 and 48: ‣ Current Services for Court Invo
Page 49 and 50: hearing held every fifteen days. At
Page 51 and 52: IV. Lessons Learned from National L
Page 53 and 54: continuum of effective strength-bas
Page 55 and 56: E. Other programs include: Mediatio
Page 57 and 58: CORE RECOMMENDATION # 2: FUND AND E
Page 59 and 60: 2. Grades 6-8 3. Grade 9 a. In addi
Page 61 and 62: FWSN referrals submitted to court.
Page 63 and 64: CORE RECOMMENDATION # 5: MAKE NEEDE
Page 65 and 66: 4. Systemic, longitudinal evaluatio
Page 67 and 68: 3. Crisis/risk determination traini
Page 69 and 70: SDE’s Secondary School Redesign D
Page 71 and 72: truant students who attend school r
Page 73 and 74: Handling of FWSN cases. Confidentia
Page 75 and 76: In response to Special Act 04-5, DC
Page 77 and 78: for all DCF Social Workers and CSSD
Page 79 and 80: IX. APPENDICES Table of Contents Ap
Page 81 and 82: Appendix II FAMILIES WITH SERVICE N
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FWSN ADVISORY BOARD - TRUANCY SUBCO
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LEGISLATIVE DRAFTING SUBCOMMITTEE M
Page 87 and 88:
States continue to struggle with th
Page 89 and 90:
Appendix IV Detailed Population Dem
Page 91 and 92:
Chart 1 shows a detailed analysis o
Page 93 and 94:
Most of the assessed children score
Page 95 and 96:
Appendix V Highlights of Other Prog
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The programs also provide preventio
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Appendix VII Evaluation of FWSN sys
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Table of Contents Introduction Page
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considered “gender-specific” or
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filed during the months of April, M
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or guardian, the child, parent or g
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general statutes, as amended by thi
Page 111 and 112:
X. GLOSSARY OF TERMS ADP - Alternat
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