Center for Coordinated Assistance to States
To coordinate the delivery of TTA designed to build capacity within states, territories, tribal units, and communities to maximize the effectiveness of juvenile justice systems to the benefit of the youth they serve.
The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR) partners with the American Institutes for Research and the Council for Juvenile Justice Administrators to focus on working more effectively with youth involved in multiple systems of care. Through funding from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice, this effort is part of the Center for Coordinated Assistance to States (CCAS) which coordinates the delivery of Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) to states, communities, territories, and tribal units looking to maximize the effectiveness of their juvenile justice system and to better serve youth.
Current Focus: Supporting Rural Communities
The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR) is taking a lead role in supporting rural communities in their work with youth by providing information, resources, and supports that focus specifically on their identified needs, challenges, and opportunities for policy and practice improvement.
Along with its partners, CJJR is utilizing its extensive knowledge, expertise, and experience to develop an array of resources that address the challenges and opportunities for system improvement in rural communities.
CJJR is working with rural communities to identify promising practices and address areas of need, in topics such as:
- Access to Counsel
- Access to Services
- Addressing Trauma
- Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
- Girls (e.g. gender responsiveness)
- Positive Youth Development Activities
- Racial and Ethnic Disparities
- Reentry
- Restorative Justice
- School-Justice Pipeline
- Serving Crossover Youth
- Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth
- Substance Use
- Transitioning Age Youth
- Use of Diversion
- Youth and Family Engagement
- Youth in Custody
Leadership Training
CJJR offers individuals and teams working within jurisdictions an opportunity to apply for participation in a Certificate Program that addresses a specific issue impacting youth at risk including multi-system integration, racial disparities, youth in custody, diversion, and school-justice partnerships.
Participation in a Certificate Program will enhance the level of information/instruction provided on each of these topics, and will provide an opportunity for an individual or team to enhance their learning in this area in order to implement reforms within their respective jurisdictions. CCAS subsidies are available for individuals and teams that show a heightened readiness to utilize the curriculum to undertake changes in their jurisdiction.
Learn more about the Certificate Programs.
Prior Focus: Multi-System Collaboration Training and Technical Assistance (MSC-TTA)
In previous iterations of CCAS, CJJR supported cohorts of diverse jurisdictions through distance learning TTA in developing the foundation for multi-system collaboration. This developmental process required the selected sites to engage in a series of activities that focused on identifying existing barriers to partnership development and information sharing, understanding how youth are served in various contexts, acknowledging how agency culture impacts change, challenging the role of leadership and empowering others in the change process, and identifying ways to truly partner with and empower youth and families.
The MSC-TTA framework focused on three primary areas of inquiry:
- Enhancing prevention efforts through a multi-system lens;
- Developing multi-system responses to youth at-risk for or having crossed over between multiple systems;
- Improving multi-system responses to the growing needs of older youth in the emerging years of adulthood.