The RFK National Resource Center and partners have been selected by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to lead a local jurisdiction probation system intensive training and technical assistance (T&TA) project in six competitively selected jurisdictions. Entitled the FY 18 Second Chance Act Ensuring Public Safety and Improving Outcomes for Youth in Confinement and While Under Community Supervision (Category 3), the initiative is designed to improve replicable community supervision practices for juveniles with co-occurring substance abuse problems and mental health disorders who are placed on probation or are being released from secure confinement. The RFK National Resource Center will work with multiple partners including the National Juvenile Defender Center; Keith Cruise, Ph.D. at Fordham University and National Youth Screening and Assessment Partners affiliate; the National Center for Juvenile Justice; and, Robin Jenkins, Ph.D. of the Impact Center at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, UNC-Chapel Hill. As the Principle Investigator for the implementation science aspect, Robin’s role is to enhance the implementation of the successful Probation System Review process in delivering the training and consultation components of the proposed project. The project is scheduled to run over a three year award cycle from October 2018 through September 2021.

The project will sequence the selection of two cohorts (three jurisdictions in each cohort) enabling the overall project team to lead complex, multi-disciplinary change processes and develop comprehensive plans for prioritized practice and policy change; drive the process of implementation activities that will increase the likelihood of sustainable and replicable improvements to system performance and changes within community supervision and probation practices; and track up to two years of performance data that will measure the impact of the new and/or revised practices and policies in the participant jurisdictions.