As I pen this article, I find myself one of a team of Virginians in attendance at the 2007 National Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) Inter-Site Meeting and Conference in Dallas, the fourth such event I have had the opportunity to attend. Sponsored and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, it is the group’s 15th annual gathering bringing together professionals from across the country to discuss best practices, innovations and accomplishments in safely eliminating the inappropriate or unnecessary use of secure detention
Most of you know that among my duties with the Department of Juvenile Justice is coordinating Virginia’s involvement in JDAI, a role I’ve been in since 2004. After brief stints in alternative education, domestic violence and adult corrections, I have spent the better part of the past 15 years in juvenile justice. While all of the work has been enjoyable (save perhaps administering urine tests and sharing responsibility for after-hours on-call intake), I can say without hesitation that my involvement with JDAI has been some of the most rewarding work of my career to date. And I say that not because the annual conferences have afforded trips to nice venues (though that has been a nice perk), but with much sincerity.
Attendees at this year’s JDAI conference include nearly 500 representatives from the judiciary, prosecution, indigent defense, private defense bar, probation, social services, education, secure detention, corrections, law enforcement, mental health, detention alternatives, private providers, advocacy groups, local government administration, elected officials and more. Those representatives will attend workshops on: Understanding and Responding to Impulsive Adolescent Behavior, Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities, Interrupting the School to Prison Pipeline Effectively Utilizing Data In Decision Making, Strengthening Legal Advocacy for Detained Youth, Assessing Alternative to Detention Program, Developing Racially and Culturally Responsive Alternatives to Detention, and Progress and Peril in the Juvenile Justice Mental Health Movement, and more.
The conference also provides the backdrop for the release of a new publication, “Beyond Detention: System Transformation Through Juvenile Detention Reform”. The publication details how communities that have enjoyed success with JDAI can build on their detention reform successes to stimulate and support broader system reform. While communities engaged in the work set out with a single goal, to safely eliminate the inappropriate or unnecessary use of secure detention, in addition to working towards that goal, they strengthen partnerships and establish new relationships, improve their data systems and enhance their capability for data-driven decision making, improve the overall case processing in their juvenile courts, and reduce racial and ethnic disparities.
It is the first of those gains, strengthening partnerships and building new relationships, that I would like to concentrate on here. Greater than any single workshop that I have attended or new publication disseminated, being here in Dallas hearing about effective partnerships that have evolved in communities across the country, I will come away from the conference with a greater appreciation for intra-agency and cross-agency collaboration.
In addition to an appreciation for the value of collaboration, my participation in the conference and participation in JDAI overall has encouraged me to rethink and redefine collaboration. In each of our different roles in juvenile justice, we are invited to the table to serve on committees, represent our work places in initiatives and participate as a representative on task forces and other groups. Having had those experiences, each time I believed I was participating in a collaborative process and in some instances I was. Thinking back, however, I realize that while each of those groups met with some regularity and most of the requisite players were present around the table, the participants (including myself) often mistook the act of meeting regularly and sharing information for any real progress.
Many collaborative groups are also missing what I now see as one of the key elements of collaboration -- accountability. When we discuss accountability in our field we are typically referring to holding young people accountable. Far less often are we referring to co-workers or colleagues. But to achieve true collaboration, members of a group must possess the political will to hold one another accountable. In a true culture of collaboration and not simply coordination, there is a healthy cross-pollination of ideas, including ideas that take us outside of our comfort zones. We must be willing to respectfully disagree and ask provocative questions of one another. And we must be willing to challenge one another work with a sense of urgency, rejecting any tendencies to maintain the status quo. Working in a milieu where team members respect one another’s expertise, but challenge one another’s ideas from the perspectives of their different disciplines, stimulates creativity, produces better outcomes, and creates a rich learning environment.
Such is the learning environment that we hope to create for the 31st Fall Juvenile Justice Training Institute -- an environment that will bring together professionals from different facets of the juvenile justice system from across the Commonwealth. Built around the theme of working more effectively together, the 31st Fall Institute, “When All the Stars Align: Partnering for Better Outcomes for Court Involved Children,” will provide a unique opportunity for professional who touch the lives of system-involved children to come together for cross-agency learning. The event includes a combination of nationally-recognized and home-grown speakers that we hope will educate, inspire, challenge and provoke. May you come to the conference open to new ideas and return energized and with the tools and resources (whether a new program, a new strategy, a new approach or a new colleague) that you need to help you more effectively work with the young people in your charge.
(Beth Stinnett works in central
administration at the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice.
Among her responsibilities is serving as the Statewide JDAI
Coordinator.)
