January 1, 2008

Bridging Two Worlds: Youth Involved in the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Systems - A Policy Guide for Improving Outcomes

This guide is intended to provide the primary options for formal policy development and implementation at the federal, tribal, State, and local levels on behalf of youth who cross over from child welfare to juvenile justice, or from juvenile justice to the child welfare system. It is derived from a Wingspread Conference held from May 7-9 2008, to outline a policy agenda to improve outcomes for these children and their families.

The guide begins with an explanation of why action from the national policy level to the individual case practice level in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems is needed to better serve crossover youth and improve outcomes for those youth who move back and forth between these systems. The development of a policy agenda that specifies key policy options at the national, State, tribal and local levels to better serve crossover youth is then discussed, as well as the values, beliefs, and the underlying philosophy that form the basis for the policy agenda. The agenda is then provided that describes strategies for six key steps: strategic partnerships are developed and supported; information, data and outcomes are shared, as appropriate, among agencies; families and youth are meaningfully engaged in system design and implementation; financing strategies are integrated and coordinated across agencies; jointly developed practice models are clearly articulated and supported in practice; and all systems understand the importance of, and actively support, investments in research and evaluation.

For each step, strategies are provided and the national, State, local, and court and agency role are described. The guide also includes a paper that was commissioned to inform the development of the policy agenda. The paper reports findings from a survey of States on the extent to which jurisdictions recognized and quantified the crossover population. Finally, proceedings from the Wingspread Conference are summarized.