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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 07252000 - C71 7;Tye -i , t . CONTRA. • FHS#21 • " COSTA TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORSelr, COTY wJi FROM: Family& Human Services Committee �. DATE: July 25, 2000 SUBJECT: Status Report on SafeFutures SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) $BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION R_9CO,MM�Et+D TIA ON(S): ACCEPT the attached report on the status Of SafeFutures. BACKGROUND/REASON(l) FOR RECOMMENDATION(S): On Monday, July 10, 2000, the Family and Human Services Committee heard a report from Mark Morris, SafeFutures Project Director,on the status of the project(see attached). After discussion, Supervisors Joe Canciamiila and John Gioia agreed to schedule SafeFutures before the Family and Human Services Committee at the beginning of the year 2001 to receive a report on the results of the evaluation currently In progress and to discuss options for continuing SafeFutures project components, in whole Or in part. Mr. Morris emphasized that while the evaluation will identify the effectiveness of individual programs, it is sometimes difficult to compare among different types of programs(prevention vs remediation). CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES SIGNATURE: _RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR-K-RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE —APPROVE OTHER I I � 81tiNATURE(S. ,,'JO CANGIAMA.LA JOHN M.GIOIA ACTIONI�OARD ON ,,,APPROVED As RECOMMENDED iOTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A _XX_UNANIMOUS(ABSENT — — — — } TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF AN AYES: NOES: ACTION TAKEN AND ENTERED ABBENT: ABSTAIN: ON MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. Contact:Bora Huffman,335-1090 ATTESTED__ Jidv 25, 2000 PHIL.BATCHELOR,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS cc: CAO AND CtUWY ADMINISTRATOR Mack Mohr(via CAO) B .DEPUTY Contra Costa County SafeFutures County Administrator's Office 651 Pine Street, 10t*4 Floor Martinez, CA 94563 TO: Family and Human Services Committee Board of Supervisors FROM: Mark Morris SafeFutures Project Director DATE: July 5, 2000 SUBJECT: Status Report on SafeFutures Recommended Actions: 1. Accept SafeFutures Summary Report (attached) 2. Schedule a further discussion in January 2001 of SafeFutures evaluation results and continuation funding options YS'V SAFEFUTURES SUMMARY REPORT July 5, 2000 INTRODUCTION SafeFutures is a five-year grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention(OJJDP). Grant activities began in mid-1996. The fourth year of funding will end September 30, 2000. The annual funding level is $1.41 million in federal dollars, matched by $100,000 in County funds. (goals. SafeFutures began with three overall goals: ❑ To expand the range of interventions in the County's juvenile justice Continuum of Care(with emphasis on services to families, programs for girls, mental health services for youth in custody, interventions with gangs in West County, expanded Probation services, and improved"transition" or "aftercare"programs for youth leaving incarceration settings). ❑ To encourage systems change and interagency collaboration through consensus among policy makers on system goals, closer collaboration among agency staff working with common clients, and better information sharing among agencies. ❑ To improve opportunities for at-risk youth to succeed in school and other activities and to reduce recidivism among delinquent youth. Funded programs. Specific programmatic activities funded under the grant include: ❑ "FamilylSchooUCommunity"preventionlearly intervention programs in three Richmond elementary schools(Coronado,Nystrom, and Lincoln). ❑ Gang intervention programs, including employment opportunities, multi- agency case management, and school-based interventions(Portola and Helms Middle Schools, and El Cerrito, Kennedy, and Richmond High Schools). ❑ Mentoring programs for young girls and for older girls on probation. ❑ The Summit Center residential treatment program for serious offenders with serious emotional or mental health problems. ❑ Various enhancements for the Probation Department, including the Volunteers in Probation program and intensive aftercare supervision for youth leaving the Orin Allen Youth Rehabilitation Center. In the course of these activities and through cooperation with other County efforts (such as the Policy Forum), SafeFutures has also contributed to systems change in the County. The annual budgets for the programmatic components within SafeFutures have averaged approximately the following: Family/School/Community prevention programs $200,000 Gang Intervention programs $400,000 Mentoring programs $150,000 Summit Center $335,000 Probation enhancements $140,000 Misc. administrative, evaluation, and technical assistance $285,000 ACCOMPLISHMENTS Continuum of care. SafeFutures has contributed significantly to the array of interventions available in the juvenile justice system,both in the creation of new programs and as at least one basis for additional programs such as the Chris Adams Center and the Challenge Grant programs, the Transition Center for youth leaving the boys ranch, and a major youth employment grant for West County. As reported in an evaluation of the Summit Center,that program is now regarded as a model for working with seriously disturbed youthful offenders. Another particular strength in the current continuum of care in this county is the variety of aftercare transitional services available to youth leaving custodial settings, including the Summit Center. The Volunteers in Probation program has afforded a variety of additional resources for probation. Volunteers help both adult and juvenile probation officers in a variety of tasks, mentor youth on probation, and provide additional resources for youth in custody(such as"internet mentoring"and publication of newsletters with youths' contributions). Youth and families served. Overall, SafeFutures has worked with approximately 3,000 youth in the past three and one half years.' Of these, at least 150 youth were served by more than one of the SafeFutures programs. Nearly all SafeFutures programs work not only with the client youth,but also in some measure with the youths' families. (The Summit Center requires family involvement; staff working with gang youth meet regularly with parents;the Family/School/Community component is specifically designed for staff to bring parents and schools together in resolving truancy,behavioral, and other problems. Even the mentoring programs hold regular meetings for parents and mentors 1 Numbers of youth served are approximations.Not all youth are counted in our information system. The current client database includes about 1800 youth who have entered a SafeFutures program since July 1998. An additional 19000+youth are reported in an earlier,separate database;it is difficult to identify how many of the youth in earlier reports carried over into the current client database. 2 Outcomes. The ultimate test of the SafeFutures programs will be whether they do, in fact, provide youth with better resources for productive lives, improve school attendance and performance, and reduce recidivism among the youth served. Full information is not yet available on these issues, although initial and sometimes anecdotal information suggests that in fact SafeFutures programs do have positive outcomes. ❑ Prevention programs (Family/School/Community and mentoring). It is difficult to measure the long-term impact of prevention programs. The local evaluation for the third year of SafeFutures and review of a sample of cases did suggest that SafeFutures staff are providing valuable services. In the first year of SafeFutures,the attention was on school attendance with chronically truant youth. Staff were able to identify factors related to truancy and in many cases resolved those problems. In subsequent years, staff attention has focused on youth manifesting behavior problems. The focus of staff activities shifted to crisis intervention with youths and their families and to group activities designed to encourage better behavior and academic performance. Again, the evaluators' observations are that many of these efforts have been successful, often by arranging for additional resources(such as health services and IEPs). When recent information is entered into the evaluation database, we should be able to identify better whether the academic performance and behavior of youth served by SafeFutures staff have improved over prior years. ❑ Summit Center. According to the most recent data available, about one third of the youth admitted to the Summit Center"fail"the program, by going AWOL while on weekend leaves and/or because of new offenses. About half commit new offenses when the period after graduation is included. Although no baseline is available against which to gauge whether this is better than might be expected in the absence of the program, it does appear to be a reasonable level of performance given the severity of the Summit youths' prior records and emotional problems. Other information3 does indicate that Summit is helping residents with educational and emotional problems. Educational data suggests that Summit residents made progress in reading, spelling, and mathematics skills. There are also tentative indications that Summit residents' "level of functioning" improves while in treatment. (Summit residents had the highest'level of impairment" among the County's various residential and other mental health treatment programs.) 2 Staff and evaluators are currently entering extensive school and recidivism data collected at the end of the recent school year. This data will provide a fuller picture than is currently available. It will be analyzed and used to adjust program efforts during the Summer 2000. 3 This information is also provisional. It is being collected and analyzed as part of an evaluation for mental health as a condition of the AB3015 grant that provides partial funding for Summit. This evaluation is not complete as of this writing. 4 together.) In roughly 20 percent of cases, SafeFutures programs work with more than one youth in a particular family. SafeFutures has provided mentors for over 150 girls. More than 100 youth have entered the Summit Center; 50 successfully graduated and another 20 are currently in the program. Staff assigned to OAYRF (and funded jointly by SafeFutures and Probation) have provided additional supervision and assistance to approximately 1,000 youth during the six weeks immediately following their release from OAYR.F. Over 100 gang members in West County have been the subject of intensive intervention and supervision by a multi-agency team. SafeFutures has provided employment training and job placements to about 40 gang-involved youth. Systems Change and Interagency collaboration. SafeFutures has initiated or participated in several activities intended to achieve data-based consensus by top and mid-level decision makers on policy goals. In working with the Juvenile Systems Planning Advisory Committee, SafeFutures provided resources for expanding the original JSPAC continuum of care into a"Comprehensive Plan"identifying further priorities. (Most of these priorities have been realized in the past two years: funding for a new Juvenile hall, intensive services for at-risk females, additional substance abuse services for adolescents in the Justice System, for example.) In addition, SafeFutures organized the Gang Task Force in West County;this group oversees SafeFutures and other grant- funded gang intervention programs and recommends general priorities for gang response programs. For example, in the past year the Gang Task Force reviewed information on crimes stemming from youth gangs in West County and directed that SafeFutures efforts be directed at three particular gangs that account for a large portion of gang-related violent crime in the area. At the"working"or staff level, SafeFutures has contributed to a number of new collaborations. These include: ❑ The Summit Center is organized around collaboration between probation, mental health, the County Office of Education, and other agencies. ❑ The Gang Intervention"Core Team"includes community organizations, law enforcement, probation, schools, and Richmond employment programs. The Core Team meets every two weeks to develop and monitor full case plans for active gang members. The case plans address supervision/enforcement requirements as well as counseling, service referrals, and educational/employment assistance. ❑ In both the gang intervention and the Family/School/Community components, SafeFutures agencies are working with West Contra Costa Unified School District staff on issues of truancy, classroom discipline, classroom performance, and other concerns affecting students and their families. 3 u Ranch Aftercare. Again, data regarding aftercare results is being updated, and a much more complete assessment will be available by the end of the summer. The ranch aftercare component has two groups: (a) gang members returning from OAYRF to West County and receiving services (for several months)from the Core Team; and (b) all other youth leaving the ranch and receiving intensive probation supervision for six weeks following their return to the community. According to the third year evaluation of SafeFutures: "Increased levels of supervision and care result in lower recidivism rates...The Gang Core Group...finished the year [after release] with a lower recidivism rate than the [general] OAYRF Aftercare Group. However,the rate of recidivism for both groups is lower than the somewhat comparable rate for parolees in the period prior to implementation of the program." PRIORITIES FOR SAFEFUI'URES YEAR FIVE Following are the priorities for the fifth and final year of federal SafeFutures funding. Continue programs,with some modifications. We will continue most current efforts through the next year. We plan to increase our capability to work with difficult parents, sponsoring staff training in conjunction with mental health and private health foundations. We also hope to develop more"empowerment" or youth initiated projects, designed to encourage youths' strengths and talents. (This supplements the more common approach of trying to alleviate"risk"factors,by recognizing that youths are resilient and can be more active participants in the programs designed to help them.) Prepare for"continuation"funding when OJJDP funds end. JSPAC has established a working group to review priorities for continuation funding and identify potential funding sources to replace SafeFutures. The evaluation in the final year will also be focused on tasks related to continuation funding. Evaluators will work with staff in each program component to revisit and sharpen the programs' focus. The evaluators will also consult with the programs and the JSPAC working group to develop data needed by decision-makers in deciding whether to fund particular activities. This data will include more extensive outcomes information and cost-effectiveness analyses. Continue systems change and collaboration building. There will be a number of activities under the general heading of systems change/collaboration. SafeFutures will work with JSPAC to revisit the continuum of care, to develop recommendations for future juvenile justice developments in the County. In this effort, JSPAC will explore closer alignment with Policy Forum activities(particularly the CBO Capacity Building Task Force and the Afterschool Programs Task Force). 5 The Gang Task Force and the Core Team will establish closer working relationships with law enforcement, including the Richmond Police Department and the West County Gang Intelligence group. Technical assistance consultants will help SafeFutures program staff, particularly in the West County programs, to develop more systematic"care coordination"mechanisms among agencies working the same youth and families and to develop long term plans for coordination of CBO and WCCDSD efforts and resources. The consultants will also assist SafeFutures in community mobilization activities designed to build public support for, and participation in, SafeFutures program activities.