NYC Center for Economic Opportunity

The Learning Independence for Empowerment (LIFE) Transitions Program focuses on reattachment to school and life/work skills for youth in secure detention and upon their return to the community.

Problem Statement
Each year in New York City more than 3,500 youth return to their communities from youth detention and face extreme difficulty in transitioning back to school and attaching to pro-social environments and activities.

Research & Evidence
There are numerous initiatives nationwide targeted to disconnected youth that focus on skill building, work and educational engagement, and paths to productive futures. Model programs include employment skill training in classroom settings, internships, and educational awareness and guidance activities.

Generally, programs that specifically target youth involved in the juvenile and criminal justice system are implemented at the post-adjudication phase, and become a component of alternative disposition or re-entry initiatives. Examples include Florida Department of Juvenile Justice programs funded by the US Department of Labor, CASES and CUNY Catch in New York City, Ferris School in Delaware, Fresh Start in Maryland, and YouthBuild's Criminal Justice Re-entry Initiatives.

To adapt the strengths of these programs to a younger population, CEO drew on best practices from these as well as other youth development programs. A review of existing programs reveals several useful or adaptable characteristics for a detention-based intervention model:

• Class/workshop sessions should be limited in size, with student-to-staff ratios no greater than 10:1.
• Many curricula include a combination of classroom employment-skill training (practice interviewing, resume writing, job search skills, communication skills, public speaking, etc.), career awareness activities (presentations by guest speakers, mentoring, focus on particular industries or work experiences, etc.), and college/educational guidance/awareness (partnerships with local academic institutions whose representatives provide guidance regarding admissions, academic programs, financial aid, etc)
• Community based youth development programs that promote lasting connections with a caring adult, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters or the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, have been found to be effective at engaging court-involved youth in community activities and reducing the rate of re-offense.
• Performance measurements for youth programs include short-term achievements such as program attendance, participation and completion rates, heightened enthusiasm for educational attainment/careers, attainment of degrees/certificates, etc as well as long-term achievements including increased educational functioning levels, increased enrollment in employment/post-secondary education/advanced training/occupational skill training after exiting the program, etc.)
• In many jurisdictions programs are supported by community based organizations and multi-agency consortiums (government partnerships) including the prosecutor's office, public defender, departments of education, including community colleges and universities, county/city probation departments, youth services agencies, and detention facilities.

However, there are several key challenges to implementing these models for youth in New York City's detention setting:

• The Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) has a significantly younger cohort than most other juvenile justice systems, with an average age of 15. Services offered should be age-appropriate to youth in secure custody, who range from ages 11 to 17. Therefore, the program's primary goal should be middle and high school completion rather than career exploration.
• Youth in detention have high levels of Special Education classification and many have low-literacy levels.
• Girls in detention, who often outperform detained males in terms of educational achievement, are also more likely to have histories of trauma and/or abuse and present different emotional needs that must be specifically addressed when developing program services.
• A youth's length of stay at DJJ can range from 24 hours to over 365 days.
• Youth can move from facility to facility and from secure to non-secure detention, depending upon a number of variables, some of which are unpredictable. Youth may also return to the community, be placed with the Office of Children and Family Services, or with other residential programs.
• Traditional curriculum design may not consider security and safety constraints particular to a detention setting, which may preclude activities that take place outside of a classroom setting such as internships.
• Services for youth in the community are often overlapping and lack the coordination to comprehensively address youth's needs. Absence of 'single point of contact' and lack of systems-level case management often result in disjointed service delivery.

DJJ conducted several focus groups with young people in detention and former detainees in order to gain insight into program design, and hosted a forum of juvenile justice stakeholders including family court judges, probation officials, educators, and community based service providers. Feedback from these groups contributed to program design and underscored the importance of developing programs to meet the differing service needs and interests of girls and boys.

Program Description
The LIFE Transitions initiative introduces youth in detention to opportunities, skills and resources that will help them to reconnect to the educational and workforce mainstream upon their exit. The program is designed to improve detained youth's attitudes toward and capacity for school achievement and future work goals, and to provide youth exiting detention with a connection to resources in their communities.

The program has two phases-the first phase occurs in secure detention facilities and the second phase occurs in the community once the youth is released.

Phase 1: Facility-Based Program
While in detention, youth attend weekly workshops that address educational aspirations, life skills, and future work trajectories. DJJ contracted for the development of a 12-module curriculum that is tailored to the varied needs of girls and boys. The curriculum is also designed to accommodate the transitory nature and differential lengths of stay of youth in detention. All young people in DJJ's long-term secure detention facilities participate in the workshops.

Phase 2: Community Based Program
The community based phase begins when youth are released from detention back into the community. Upon their release, youth continue to attend workshops once a week at a local community site, where they receive additional curriculum instruction and are engaged in community based youth development programs. In addition, youth receive case management and support services to ensure both re-enrollment in an appropriate school or education facility, as well as appearances for any court-related appointments.

Target Population
The LIFE Transitions program serves young adults age 11 to 17 detained in either Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx, or Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn.

Expected Outcomes
Short-Term:

• Change in attitudes or expectations of participating youth and improved ability to assess personal strengths
  
• Improved attitudes toward educational attainment
  
• Improved understanding of vocational opportunities and the concomitant skills/education needed to obtain them
  
• Re-enrollment in school
  
• Enrollment in community based youth development program

Long-Term:

• Reduction in readmission rate for program participants
  
• Increased school enrollment and attendance/participation
  
• Connection/participation in age-appropriate work-related programs in the community