Trauma-Informed Care & Mental Health

San Diego, California (2015 YIC)

• • Description: Establish a Trauma Response Unit within the San Diego County Probation Department to promote trauma-informed care for youth in custody. The main components of the Capstone Project include:

  • 1) Develop collaborative relationships with key stakeholders.

  • 2) Identify and recruit multidisciplinary staff experienced in trauma-informed care.

  • 3) Train staff and partners in the use of TARGET.

  • 4) Establish eligibility criteria for committed youth.

  • 5) Integrate trauma-informed care into current program operations.

    • Update (2016): The team established a TRU team that includes probation officers, the Stabilization, Transition, Assessment, and Treatment (STAT) team, correctional counselors, and staff from San Diego Unified School District. Staff were trained in TARGET, and the Capstone team has implemented specific quality assurance protocols that include coaching, training, video-taping and reviewing the videotape, monthly individual and group consultation, and a certification process. Within the first 6 months of implementation, 72 youth have completed TRU, have significantly less behavioral incidents and improved PTSD/Anxiety symptoms. The Capstone Project on TRU received awards from the California State Association of Counties and the Council on Mentally Ill Offenders.

  • Contacts:

    • Billy Duke, Deputy Chief Probation Officer, San Diego County Probation Department *NOTE* Billy is no longer with the Probation Department.

    • Lisa Sawin, Division Chief, San Diego County Probation Department

    • Stacy Spector, Executive Director, San Diego County Office of Education

    • Chrystal Sweet, Division Chief, San Diego County Probation Department

    • Geoff Twitchell, Director of Treatment and Clinical Services, San Diego County Probation Department

KVC, Nebraska (2014 YIC)

• • Description: Trauma-informed care (training foster parents, using a trauma screening tool with clients, providing crisis response beds, and providing intensive in-home services for youth in placements).

    • Update (2015): The team has implemented a trauma screen to guide intervention strategies, a full array of trauma-informed interventions, and the Safe & Connected model. The results of the Capstone Project is promising, with improvement in placement stability, re-entry care, and absence of recurrent maltreatment, as well as decreased number of youth placed in detention. The team also solicited feedback from probation staff, and the results were overall very positive.

  • Contacts:

    • Jodie Austin, President - KVC Behavioral Health Services

    • Theresa Goley, Director - KVC Behavioral Health Services

Nebraska Probation (2014 YIC)

• • Description: Provide training in trauma-informed care and family engagement for probation officers across the state. Create a state-level work group involving Probation and DHS to analyze and address communication gaps, program deficiencies, and needed process changes with regard to facilities and reentry, hopefully to create standards that are evidence-based/best-practice. Analyze lessons learned in Lancaster County regarding best practices in reentry, as learned during the past two years under the Second Chance Reentry Act, and develop a strategy to bring those lessons to other communities in Nebraska.

    • Update (2017): The team has worked to collaborate with more staff from Nebraska Probation as well as the Administrative Office of Probation. To improve their trauma-informed care, the team has created trauma work group, conducted trauma training for all staff and developed a peer support team & handbook. On the front of family engagement, the team improved their family team meetings, began collecting quantitative data on family visitation, and created and administered family surveys upon youth's discharge and use the feedback to guide their system improvement efforts. The team is in the process of creating a Youth Advisory Board to guide the reform of probation policy, protocol, and training. In terms of re-entry, the team successfully help pass L500 in 2015 to require Medicaid to include MultiSystemic Therapy for youth. The probation department is also planning to expand its use of Ecological In-Home Family Treatment (EIHFT), with full implementation expected by the end of 2017. The team's initiatives to collaborate with the Sherwood Foundation, improve data collection and analysis, and continuous push for policy and practices changes based on data collected has seen some promising results. In 2016, the team reported that probation as a whole has seen a 5% decrease in out-of home placement, and a 30% decrease in the utilization of out-of-state placement. The probation department has expanded its in-home services, and is planning to expand the use of Family Group Conferencing.

  • Contact:

    • Jim Bennett, Director of Placement, Juvenile Supervision Services - Nebraska State Probation Administration

    • Amoreena Brady, Case Management and Services Specialist - Nebraska State Probation Administration

Sacramento County, California (2014 MSI)

• • Description: Implement CSEC screening tool. Start a docket dedicated to cases involving CSEC youth that follows the tenets of CYPM. Ensure that all service providers and key stakeholders are trained on trauma-informed care and adolescent brain development. Develop partnership with local businesses to provide vocational and employment opportunities for youth on the docket.

    • Update (2017): The team has created a dedicated CSEC court docket for crossover CSEC youth, a CSEC Interagency Steering Committee, and signed an MOU. The MOU also established a new process and screening tool for identifying CSEC and youth at risk of being commercially sexually exploited, and developed a multidisciplinary team structure to work with identified CSEC youth. To create the CSEC screening tool (Commercial Sexual Exploitation - Identification Tool), the Capstone team partnered with the West Coast Children's Clinic to identify common indicators for CSEC. 

  • Contact: 

    • Keith Bays, Chief Probation Officer - Sacramento County

    • Stacy Boulware Eurie, Presiding Juvenile Court Judge - Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento

    • Michelle Callejas, Deputy Director - Sacramento County Child Protective Services

    • Traci Lee, Assistant County Counsel - Sacramento County, Office of the County Counsel

    • Matt Perry, Assistant Superintendent - Sacramento County Office of Education

    • Michael Shores, Assistant Chief Probation Officer - Sacramento County Probation Department

    • Uma Zykofsky, Deputy Director, Behavioral Health Services, Department of Health & Human Services - Sacramento County

Massachusetts Team 2 (July 2011 MSI - Public)

• • Description: Develop a protocol for joint planning for youth involved in the juvenile justice and mental health systems to ensure that services are coordinated and more effective.

  • Contact:

    • Jonathan Simmons, Integrated Clinical Specialist - Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Mental Health

    • Robert Turillo, Assistant Commissioner of Program Services - Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Youth Services

Heartland for Children, Florida (Oct. 2011 MSI - Public)

• • Description: Prevent crossover among teen girls in out-of-home care by promoting safe, stable and nurturing relationship via: Implement ACES assessment of childhood trauma, specialized childhood caregiver training (eg: train placements in child informed care, both individual homes and group homes), Family Finding, Family Group Decision Making/Family Team Conferencing, and other best practices. Additionally, assess teen girls' level of complex trauma and risk of crossing over into juvenile justice; Build capacity of caregivers to help teen girls who have experienced abuse/neglect; Build capacity of local mental health and substance abuse providers to recognize and treat trauma; Provide additional resources (such as specialized caregiver training, family team conferences, trauma focused treatment and support for healing, etc).

  • Contact:

    • Eva Horner, Chief Operating Officer - Heartland for Children

    • Teri Saunders, Chief Executive Officer - Heartland for Children

California (2010 MSI - Public)

• • Description:  Develop a community-based diversion program for justice-involved youth with mental health needs (Juvenile Justice Diversion and Treatment Program (JJDTP)

  • Contact: Michael Shores, Assistant Division Chief - Sacramento County Probation Department

District of Columbia (2009 MSI)

• • Description: Help improve case management of child abuse cases in tribal jurisdiction and facilitate collaboration between tribal, state and federal authorities.

  • Contact: Renee Williams, Social Science Program Specialist - Office for Victims of Crime Office of Justice Programs U.S. Department of Justice 

Illinois (2009 MSI)

• • Description: Diversion counseling program in order to help youth perpetrators of domestic violence break the pattern of violent behavior and divert them from further juvenile justice system involvement.

  • Contacts: 

    • Kathleen (Kathy) McNamara, Community Placement Manager - Department of Probation and Court Services 18th Judicial Circuit, DuPage County

    • Wendy Nussbaum, Executive Director - Northeast DuPage Family and Youth Services Models for Change 

    • Robert Vickery, Program Manager - Department of Probation and Court Services 18th Judicial Circuit Court, DuPage County, Illinois

Erie County, New York (2009 MSI)

• • Description: Shorten the length of stay for youth who are placed in residential centers by reinforcing the values of the State Children's Plan and coordinating wraparound services. While Erie County continue to shift from a residential model to a community diversion model, the project will focus on redefining residential centers and best practices to support youth transition back into the community.

    • Update (2024): Sly's project was successful in reducing Erie County detention stays as well as out of home placements for PINS youth. Erie County no longer has a nonsecure detention facility. Additionally, by January 2020, Erie County only had 1 PINS youth in residential foster care. 

  • Contact: Marie Sly, Clinical Supervisor for the Family Services Team - Erie County Department of Mental Health

Alaska (2008 MSI CPI)

• • Description: Create resource guide/SOP for dealing with youth with mental health needs, at risk of referral to a psychiatric treatment facility placement.

  • Contact: Courtney O'Byrne King, Program Coordinator - State of Alaska

Minnesota (2008 MSI CPI)

• • Description: Improve mental health services for youth involved in the juvenile justice system by: collecting data, creating information sharing mechanisms, coordinating services, and mapping and redistributing current financing of services.

  • Contact: Chris Bray, Director of Juvenile Services - Minnesota Dept. of Corrections