Advancing the Profession
Sitting here waiting for the holidays to arrive, I was reflecting on what comes next for those of us in juvenile justice. I recently opined on what the system would look like forty years from now, but today I wonder what we will look like in the near term.
Of all things possible, it seems to me one certainty on our collective horizons is that we will become more research based. The use of validated assessments, service plans developed solely from criminogenic factors, and coordination of community resources will increase rapidly. Many have tried to avoid embracing this drive toward data-based case management, but I sincerely believe it will help us become more effective. When appropriately targeted issues and behaviors are addressed and corrected, our communities will be the safer for it, and our clients and their families will benefit from the efficiency such an effort produces.
Having stated that, please understand I do not endorse such a schema as the finite result of our professional evolution. However, it is the one we will create fairly soon. Rather than a data-driven system, I would prefer that we reach to the next higher level of justice, where our services are offered through a principle-driven system. But I shall leave that discussion for another day.
To implement this evolving approach to juvenile justice, I believe we will find that more and more specialized functions will be required within our agencies and administrative units. Although I may be one of the last generalists, I do believe that as a profession we must start recognizing that specialists have a needed place among us, and we must welcome their expertise. Researchers will become essential to our service provision and funding processes. Specialized providers in substance abuse, sex offender treatment, and antisocial management are needed abundantly, and we must find ways to better facilitate their capability into our operation, and afford them the respect they deserve. We must pay attention when our most learned practitioners cite research confirming the need to provide treatment services which are created and delivered accurately by individuals advanced in education and licensure (fidelity). We must begin to recognize that we not only can but will do harm if our treatment services are not provided consistently in frequency and quantity in order to stimulate the desired result in our clients (dosage). Ours is becoming a profession where we are not seeking predictive powers to determine which clients will re-offend, but rather to use the research available to identify which clients meet the characteristics of individuals who may re-offend, and to direct our service provision toward those most likely to do so. We must further develop our system to encompass assessment, intervention, and re-assessment as everyday occurrence, as natural as answering a telephone when it rings.
The rapid shift to this way of approaching our social services has already begun. Minimum licensure, minimum demonstration of competencies, and pre-employment and post-employment psychological testing are being discussed and spoken of as being desired, not simply wishful. It is no longer sufficient to merely want to help others change. Our workforce will need to have the skill to actually do that, and to be able to create an environment in which positive change can occur. Much like attitudes, values and beliefs affect our clients’ propensity to re-offend, I believe as a profession we must set our standards higher still, and to reinforce and model pro-social behavior.
In fact, let us start with the desirability of modeling pro-social behavior as a norm for our profession. It seems reasonable to me that we should set minimum expectations on ourselves, and we can start with our own attendance at training and conferences. I am confident everyone who attended our most recent 40th anniversary training institute found something wonderfully beneficial about it - I certainly did. But I was also constantly distracted by the behavior of other attendees. I had come to learn. I had come to the conference open to new ideas, suggestions, some nuance of understanding that I had overlooked or never encountered. The speakers were competent and expert in their fields and used delivery styles that were conducive to quality learning. They were chosen for those traits and paid handsomely for it. What I found troubling were the participants who obviously had not come to learn, and I know that I was not alone.
A regular topic of conversation among participants between sessions was about how rude and offensive other colleagues were during the presentations. Like a Special Edition DVD, I offer you examples with my commentary: overly loud conversations occurring while the speakers spoke - almost like people were watching a movie, not a play (the actors can be distracted by the flashbulbs); cell phone use – I’d like to find the person who invented those in-the-ear phones and discuss alimentary canals sometime; the consistent beeping of telephones as text messages were being received and sent – I have nothing against text messages, but I am irritated when people I am in a room with are having multiple conversations with people I can’t see (it’s almost like having public phone sex and we are talking with all the partners they have ever had); folks arriving late – show up for work; folks who can’t sit for ninety minutes without needing to go somewhere – would we tolerate that from our clients if it wasn’t in their IEP; and, lastly, reading unrelated material while a presenter is trying to inform us of salient points that affect our professional life – if you want to read the newspaper, or be a day-trader, change jobs, but when you’re in a training session show a little respect.
I suppose the clear idea I am trying to convey is that we would not want our clients to exhibit these behaviors – they are not pro-social. When I give a client my best “Miss Musselmann’s stare” (my second-grade teacher), I expect them to correct their behavior. When I go to a conference and you see me turn around six times and look at you sending your next text message, please get the point without having anyone need to invite you out of the room. As professionals we need to not interrupt one another, be on time, and wait for the next break before taking one. It wastes our collective time and resources when we cannot hear the speaker. I don’t believe we need to set a reverential standard in our training sessions, but I would like to start with respect toward others. If you check the research, I believe you will find I am correct in stating that a room without distractions is more conducive to effective education than one with constant interruptions. And you don’t need a license to be polite.
Ron Telsch is a Probation Supervisor in the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice's 25th Court Service Unit (covering Lexington, Covington and Botetourt).
