CJCA Winter Meeting held in San Antonio

Posted by Darlene Conroy
March 21, 2017

The Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA) Winter Business Meeting was held Jan. 22-24 at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio where over 37 CJCA directors and designees participated.

CJCA’s special commemorative meeting program was dedicated to CJCA’s founding Executive Director “Ned” Loughran and can be viewed here.

The weekend’s activities began with the CJCA Welcome Reception on Friday evening, co-sponsored by Tadar Muhammad of Home Builders Institute (HBI), Jim Hill, Youth Opportunity Investments and Chuck Parkins and C-Tech.

On Saturday morning, Fariborz Pakseresht, Director of the Oregon Youth Authority and chair of the CJCA Best Practices Committee, introduced the first presentation from the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project (PSPP). LaShunda Hill, Senior Associate for Policy at the PSPP’s Juvenile Justice Reform Initiative, led an informative discussion on achieving better outcomes for youths at less cost to juvenile corrections agencies. Her presentation focused on protecting public safety while improving outcomes and strengthening available community options. She outlined the framework for Pew’s state technical assistance to states which includes Data Analysis; System Assessment; policy development and consensus building. LaShunda included several key examples of work from states involved with the PSPP including Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, South Dakota, West Virginia and Kansas. She reviewed the targeted solutions created for these individual states.

The second Best Practices featured a presentation from Chris Branson, Ph.D. clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor at the NYU School of Medicine whose work focuses on improving access to effective social services for youth and families involved with the justice system. His presentation was extremely well received by members and included some best approaches to implementing trauma-informed care within a juvenile justice setting. Chris helped review and answer questions on exactly what trauma-informed care mean and how to implement it. He shared some specific practices for improving outcomes for youth, families, staff and agencies.

Thank you to Phyllis Becker, Director, Missouri Division of Youth Services and the Midwest Region members for hosting this Best Practices Committee session.

CJCA’s Associate members next hosted an informative panel discussion during the lunch on Saturday.

The CJCA Business Meeting on Saturday afternoon featured reports from CJCA President Fariborz Pakseresht and Executive Director Mike Dempsey. Mary Livers, American Correctional Association (ACA) President, welcomed CJCA to the ACA Congress, which would commence on Sunday Evening.

Following the Business Meeting, the CJCA Regional and Associate Members’ meetings were held. An evening reception sponsored by Abel Screening, Inc. capped the day’s events.

On Sunday morning, the Positive Youth Outcomes (PYO), Recidivism and PREA Committees met. A highlight of the PYO Committee was a presentation from staff and youths from AMIkids Rio Grande Valley. The staff and youths shared their work which helps youths work through issues and gain employment training and needed skills to return to their families and communities. The youths from the program shared an overview of the AMIkids Personal Growth Model which is both evidence-based and research driven.

Recidivism Committee Chair Susan Burke provided an update on the Recidivism data collection where over twelve states contributed data to the project.

Next, the PREA Committee featured an update from Jessica Stroop, Statistician, Bureau of Justice Statistics who reported on the upcoming BJS PREA survey on Sexual Victimization currently being developed.

The meeting concluded at noon on Sunday with lunch.

CJCA appreciates the generosity of our meeting sponsors to help make this meeting possible including: Abel Screening, Inc. (gold sponsor), AMI Kids, Inc., Rite of Passage, G4S, Parenting with Love and Limits, Youth Opportunity Investments, Community Resources for Justice, Community Solutions, Inc. Home Builders, Institute; C-Tech, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.