2024 Capstone of the Year
2024 Capstone of the Year Award Winner: Flathead County, Montana from School Justice Partnerships Certificate Program
Project Goals
For their Capstone Project as part of the 2016 School Justice Partnerships Certificate Program, the Flathead County team sought to reduce the transfer of youth to the juvenile justice system for school-based offenses. To do so, the team launched a pilot program focused on targeted behavioral interventions and community-driven approaches to promote positive youth development and community safety. This work was undertaken through partnerships between schools, law enforcement, the courts, and community-based organizations.
From One Pilot Project to Four Local High Schools and Three Middle Schools
The Flathead County Team’s work began in 2017 as a pilot project at one high school in Kalispell, Montana aimed at preventing justice system involvement for youth with first-time drug and alcohol offenses. Since then, the team’s School Justice Partnership (SJP) model has expanded and is now used for all youth with first-time misdemeanor and status offenses at four local high schools and three middle schools. The ultimate goals of the SJP are to reframe school discipline to emphasize youth accountability instead of exclusion from school, use community-based resources to address the root causes and impacts of youth behavior, and curb the school-to-prison pipeline. As an alternative to formal justice-system involvement, youth who are referred to the SJP are offered services through a community-based organization, the Center for Restorative Youth Justice (CRYJ). School resource officers and school administrators are empowered to refer youth to CRYJ services in conjunction with reduced school suspension time. Within 30 days of referral, CRYJ offers youth services such as an initial family conference, conferences with the youth about the impact of their actions, specific workshops based on the youth’s needs (e.g., conflict resolution, substance use and risk reduction, coping skills), and victim-offender conferencing where appropriate. Upon completion of CRYJ programming, youth and their referring party meet for a coordinated reintegration meeting to promote youth’s accountability and responsibility.
Changing the Culture, and Finding New Funding Strategies
To foster a local culture that supports this model, the Flathead County team has engaged in unique culture change and funding strategies. The Flathead County team was able to zero in on stakeholders’ shared priority around community safety, particularly with school resource officers (SROs), and has used this as a selling point for their SJP program. Before the SJP project, SROs were largely focused on moving cases along and were responsible for a high number of tickets coming into Youth Court. To lower the number of court referrals from SROs, the Flathead County Team, supported by the county attorney and local judges, successfully advocated for status offenses to no longer be able to be filed in its Youth Court. Additionally, the Flathead County team has regularly engaged with SROs about the importance of the SJP approach, holding yearly trainings, promoting the importance of relationship building with youth, and emphasizing that the SJP approach allows SROs to be focused on safety-related issues. In terms of funding, in Montana, the state incentivizes districts to not place youth within the youth justice system, awarding these districts any leftover placement funds to be used toward Prevention Incentive Funds (PIFs). In Flathead County, the Youth Court has access to these PIFs and is able to offer funding (in conjunction with CRYJ’s own fundraising and grant writing) to schools to implement the SJP model. So, while schools sometimes contribute small portions of funding to undertake this work, they are not required to, further incentivizing them to adopt this model.
Positive Outcomes
The SJP program has shown promise in promoting positive youth outcomes and reducing out-of-school suspensions. In 2023, SJP referrals made up 43% of all Youth Court referrals, as compared to just 5% of all Youth Court referrals in 2017, indicating Flathead County’s commitment to diverting youth through this model. Youth involved with the SJP program have a recidivism rate of 10%, which is lower than the 23% recidivism rate for all Flathead County youth. Additionally, the number of Kalispell youth who receive out-of-school suspensions has decreased since the introduction of this project, with 82 youth receiving out-of-school suspensions in 2023 as compared to 208 youth in 2017. The work has also had strong impacts on youth and families. One CRYJ youth stated that “CRYJ made me think about the weight my actions had on others and how strong that impact really was. I learned that even if [it] wasn’t my intention, I still hurt people.” The Montana Board of Crime Control has recognized the Flathead County Team’s work at the state level, noting that “this program is the only one of its kind in Montana, creating immediate and long-lasting benefits to all those directly served and the greater community.” In the near future, the SJP/CRYJ model will be replicated in Missoula, Montana.
Overall, the Flathead County team’s SJP project demonstrates the importance of front-end, community-based approaches to reducing formal youth justice system involvement. While the composition of the original Flathead County team as well as the leadership within the county in general has changed over time, the Flathead County team has maintained a shared passion for this work based in strong communication and collaboration across systems. Through this work, the Flathead County team has helped to change the culture within schools across the 11th Judicial District from punitive to restorative, focusing on the power of relationships between stakeholders and the unique positioning of community-based organizations to offer relevant, impactful services for youth and families.
Capstone Team Members
The original Capstone team members include:
- Dave Bailon, Vice-Chairman of the Montana Youth Justice Advisory Council and Youth Justice Volunteer, Center for Restorative Youth Justice
- Kate Berry, Center for Restorative Youth Justice
- Cassi Carr, Deputy Juvenile Probation Officer & School Liaison, Judicial District 11, State of Montana
- Cory Clarke, Police Officer/School Resource Officer, City of Kalispell
- Mark Flatau, Superintendent, Kalispell Public Schools
- Shareen Springer, Center for Restorative Youth Justice
- Nicolle Roth, Social Worker, School District 5
- Lisa Wolfe, School Counselor, Kalispell School District
Local Media Coverage
To read local media highlighting Flathead County’s efforts, please click here and here.
Background on the Capstone of the Year Award
The Capstone of the Year Award recognizes the Certificate Program participant or team who has made the most significant progress through their Capstone Project by promoting the well-being of youth through multi-system approaches in their community. All CJJR Fellows are eligible to receive the award, regardless of the year of their Certificate Program participation.
First awarded in March 2012, this award serves to honor and recognize the success, innovation, and tremendous work of CJJR Fellows through their Capstone Project reform efforts. Over the years, we have been able to honor teams and individuals for their work on a wide variety of topics. In 2012, we highlighted Peter Forbes and Lisa Belmarsh’s work to improve outcomes for crossover youth in Massachusetts by focusing on the detention decision point. Leah van Lingen’s 2014 Capstone of the Year project expanded early identification and treatment services to prevent youth from entering the delinquency system in San Diego, California. In 2015, Kathleen Sande was recognized for her Education Advocate Program, which bolstered education services as part of a youth’s re-entry process in Washington State. In 2016, the Fairfax County, Virginia team’s Capstone Project facilitated the implementation of structured decision-making tools and the expansion of their community diversion program. The North Carolina Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians team was awarded 2017 Capstone of the Year for building an integrated juvenile justice and child welfare system for their tribe youth and families. The Pine County, Minnesota team won the Capstone of the Year Award in 2018 for their work to address truancy and school discipline issues. In 2019, the Bexar County, Texas team was recognized for their efforts to bolster academic, vocational, technological, and life skills programming within the Krier Center, a local youth residential facility.
About the School-Justice Partnerships Certificate Program
The Flathead County, MT Team participated in the 2016 School-Justice Partnerships Certificate Program–a weeklong program designed to provide youth-serving agency leaders with the knowledge and understanding necessary to address the immediate and long-term needs of students known to, or at risk of entering, the youth justice system. Program participants receive instruction from national experts on cutting-edge ideas, policies, and practices from across the country focused on holistic approaches to the educational process and best practices in developing school diversion programs. Upon completion of the Certificate Program, participants become CJJR Fellows by designing and implementing a Capstone Project to improve outcomes for youth in their jurisdiction. CJJR currently has over 2,100 Fellows that benefit from ongoing technical assistance and inclusion in a growing network of mutually supportive leaders across the country.