Vunerable Youth Subcommittee


2025 Budget Recommendations


Children’s Cabinet Advisory Board 

Sub-Committee Group 

Budget Priority Recommendations Fiscal Year 2025 

 

Group Name: Vulnerable Youth Subcommittee      

Group Chairs Name and Email Address:  

Michelle Gros, specialprojects@pelicancenter.org 

 

Overview: The Vulnerable Youth Subcommittee aims to improve outcomes for Louisiana youth most susceptible to parental abuse and neglect, human trafficking, violence, gang involvement, criminal involvement, substance abuse, physical and mental health disorders, homelessness, poverty, and family instability and the consequences of these experiences. The Subcommittee is specifically focused on youth involved with the Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) and the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) as well as youth who are aging out of foster care and proposing strategic recommendations to strengthen state and community supports that will decrease vulnerability to criminal and other adverse childhood experiences, enhance resilience, and minimize long-term repercussions associated with these experiences. 

 

Budget Priorities:   

 

 

Louisiana has the second-highest child poverty rate in the U.S. at 19%, and the second-highest rate of families living at or below the ALICE threshold in the U.S. with 50% of households struggling. In July of 2023, there were 3,116 youth in custody of the state’s juvenile correctional system, including nearly 2,400 under “community-based supervision.” Additionally, school arrests, school expulsions, school truancy rates, and entries of children into foster care are increasing. More than ever, there is a need for wrap-around services and supports for children and families.  

 

Some parishes have launched one-stop-shops like the Harbor in Caddo Parish, the LAMARC in Lafayette Parish, and the MARC (Multi-Agency Resource Center) in Calcasieu Parish to divert children and families from juvenile, criminal, and child welfare system involvement and instead provide them with the services, supports, and skills they need to be successful. These sites are essentially collaborations between public school systems, local courts, local government, the mayor’s office, the district attorney’s office, law enforcement, emergency responders, and nonprofits to provide a single location for children and families to find multiple resources and services all under one roof. For example, children who are truant, are having problems at school and/or home, and/or have been arrested for low-level offenses can be referred to these programs for support.  

The MARC operates under the supervision of the Calcasieu Parish Policy Jury, and its main goal is to divert youth aged 6-18 from the juvenile justice system into suitable programs and services, while also significantly reducing wait times for access to community services from weeks to hours. It is a collaboration of various entities, including the 14th Judicial District Court’s Family and Juvenile Court Division, the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Calcasieu School Board, the Calcasieu District Attorney’s Office, the Calcasieu Public Defenders Office, and other key community partners.  

The MARC provides a 24-hour helpline for youth, families, law enforcement, and other referral sources and non-traditional in-person service hours to ensure convenience for families (It is open Monday through Saturday from 8:00am-2:00am and Sundays from 1:00pm-11:00pm.). Schools can contact the MARC to provide immediate assistance to students, parents can contact the MARC for support, community providers can contact the MARC to assist in creating safety and support plans with families they serve, and child protection services can use the MARC facility as a neutral site for families. It supports families with basic needs, behavioral and mental health services, crisis interventions, substance use, life skills, and mentoring. Services at the MARC include a single-entry point to reduce service duplication, provide immediate assistance to youth and families without system involvement, provide evidenced-based programming to address needs, and is a data-driven center that can be modified to address community needs. It assists law enforcement by providing an alternative to arresting and charging youth, giving the youth and their parents an opportunity to be part of a diversion program that addresses the identified issues, provides services to the family, and prevents formal charges.  

The MARC has seen the following results since 2014: petitions decreased by 45%, status referrals decreased by 67%, detention placements decreased by 58%, and 87% of all cases referred to the MARC were diverted from formal processing (15,738 youth diverted from court involvement). Additionally, the MARC saw case processing decrease from 17 days to 3.9 days; chances of re-offense decrease from 26% to 12%; and status referrals decrease fivefold. 

These one-stop shops not only help children and families assess and access the services and supports they need, but they also provide on-site mental health services, occupational and physical therapy, parenting, workforce development, domestic violence counseling, advocacy services, academic support, tutoring, and more. With the growing needs of Louisiana’s children and families, it is recommended that funding be made available for parishes to establish similar one-stop shops in their communities. Further information, as requested, can be collected and provided.  

Louisiana’s truancy rate has risen by 23% in the past five years and totaled 42.5% during the 2023-24 school year (according to figures compiled by the Louisiana Department of Education)—this translates to about 277,000 students statewide. More than four in 10 Louisiana public schools are classified as truant, a fast-growing problem that plagues low- and high-performing districts alike. The link between the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in truancy rate is evidenced by the data showing that the truancy rate has doubled the pre-pandemic rate: The availability of support, resources, and accountability that schools provide to families was completely disrupted during the pandemic, as was the habit of school attendance. With lost employment, housing and food insecurity, health impacts, and a lack of technology for participation in virtual school, families faced overwhelming challenges that resulted in youth missing significant amounts of schooling.   

With youth truancy on the rise in Louisiana, youth vulnerability is on the rise. Youth truancy has long been correlated with delinquency, substance abuse, physical and mental health issues, gang activity, and family instability. Schools have historically provided a safety net for vulnerable youth, identifying those who need extra support and intervening before crisis hits. Schools connect youth and their families to needed services. It is essential for local stakeholders to work together to reengage vulnerable youth in school and ensure they have the support they need at school (i.e., some schools have implemented truancy programs, school flight diversion programs, mental health support programs, school re-engagement programs, Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), alternatives to suspensions and expulsions, etc.). 

In FY 2023, the Governor’s Office partnered with the Pelican Center for Children and Families, the Louisiana Children’s Trust Fund, and LFYE to host the Louisiana Solutions Summit. Part of the Summit’s purpose was to facilitate collaboration among school and juvenile justice professionals from nine parishes to improve school conduct and attendance outcomes, maintain safe schools, proactively address the student engagement crisis, mitigate child welfare and juvenile justice system involvement escalation, and create strategies and solutions to support youth in their communities. 

Since the Summit’s convening, parishes who attended the Summit have continued to convene and collaborate in some capacity and outcomes have improved. In Iberia Parish, for example, different check-in methods with families were implemented and schools started making more timely FINS referrals resulting in an attendance increase of 90% at all elementary schools. 

It is recommended that Louisiana continue to prioritize funding to proactively address the truancy crisis before juvenile justice and child welfare system involvement skyrockets. Follow up is needed with the jurisdictions who attended the 2023 Solutions Summit to ensure continued collaboration between the local school and juvenile justice systems and support the implementation of identified programs. Further, other parishes would benefit from a similar Summit and/or assistance to help ensure that vulnerable youth are receiving the support that they need to be successful. The projected budget would depend on the agency tasked with hosting the Summit and the necessary follow-up support identified at the 2023 Solutions Summit.  

 

See the Behavioral Health Services for Children K-12 Subcommittees budget priority recommendation re: Maximizing Medicaid Funding for School Districts in Louisiana as we agree this budget item should be prioritized. The proposed uniform system for collecting and sharing medical records would also benefit youth involved in the child welfare and/or juvenile system who are more at risk of school transfers.  

  

The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) has been working to expand two services from the Louisiana Crisis Response System (LA-CRS) to serve children. Mobile Crisis Response and Community Brief Crisis Support have begun service to Louisiana children on Medicaid, and implementation will continue to expand the reach of these services across more regions of the State throughout SFY25. 

Mobile Crisis Response provides a 24/7 service as an initial intervention to children on Medicaid in a self-identified crisis, in which a crisis response team deploys to where the child is located in his or her community. Community Brief Crisis Support is a face-to-face ongoing crisis intervention strategy, designed to provide stabilization and support in the child’s community subsequent to an initial intervention. Essentially, children on Medicaid who are experiencing a mental health or substance use disorder crisis will have access to a continuum of services until the crisis is resolved and/or the child returns to existing services or is linked to other behavioral health supports as needed. This intervention aims to divert children from institutional levels of care yet respects bed-based crisis services without relying on them as a foundation. With an estimated 53% (2021 LA Health Insurance Survey) of Louisiana children on Medicaid, it is recommended that funding for the continued implementation of these services in SFY 2026 be prioritized.  

Youth involved with DCFS, OJJ (including non-secure care facilities, secure care facilities, and formal FINS), and informal FINS are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable in our state due to multi-system involvement, and histories of trauma. Long-term studies of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and other research statistics regarding further trauma show an increased risk of future mental and physical health consequences.  

Before funding new programs or expanding current ones, the state should first ensure that children who are already system-involved have adequate staff to care for them. Otherwise, the state will continue the cycle of expanding and funding new programs, while simultaneously struggling to effectively support children and families already in present systems. For example, juvenile group homes and prisons are understaffed, leaving staff to focus solely on safety instead of rehabilitation—which has impacts on the entire system. If the ultimate punishment is ineffective, everything that precedes it becomes less effective. Furthermore, a shortage of staff to serve the current children in the custody or care of these agencies will inevitably stymie efforts to successfully move upstream toward prevention because those efforts will continue to be put on hold to react to crises caused by the ongoing shortage of staff to meet the agencies’ mandated requirements. 

To accomplish what the above-referenced entities are statutorily required to do, they desperately need funding to hire staff at a competitive salary. The type of work required by frontline workers at these agencies can be extremely challenging and traumatizing. Sufficient pay and appropriate staffing can help prevent burnout and high turnover caused by the nature of these cases. The Vulnerable Youth Subcommittee recommends priority be given immediately to fully assess the number of staff needed and the competitive pay necessary to serve the number of children and families these agencies generally serve annually and accomplish the mandated requirements of these agencies. It is specifically recommended that a caseload/workload analysis and compensation commensurate with recommendations be conducted at a minimum on the staff needed for (1) the child protection investigation, family (in-home) services, and foster care units of DCFS; (2) the non-secure care facilities, secure care facilities, and formal FINS of OJJ; and (3) Informal FINS. In Maine, a similar study was statutorily required over several years, which is also recommended for Louisiana, to ensure the study is comprehensively conducted. Once the number of staff needed and competitive pay necessary is determined for each agency, filling those funding gaps should be a priority in SY 2024 and 2025 before funding any new or expansion of existing program mandates so that these agencies can provide quality and effective services to the children and families they serve and accomplish their missions and legal mandates. Further information, as requested, can be collected and provided. The subcommittee understands that an estimated budget for the caseload/workload analysis and compensation commensurate would need to be determined. 

 

How do we know if detention or the delinquency program really helped the child? How do we know if the 10-year prison sentence really worked to prevent further crimes? Did the punishment or program make things better for the child, family, or the public? Why are criminal and juvenile justice system stakeholders seeing more and more generational cycles of families involved in the system? This subcommittee believes a focused collaboration between the criminal justice and public health systems to assess if the current Louisiana criminal and juvenile justice system programs, punishments, and processes are actually working to keep families safe and supported and prevent crime. By looking at criminal and juvenile justice through the lens of public health, stakeholders can better evaluate the effectiveness of current practices and how (and if) they reduce criminality, mass incarceration, and the devastating effects that follow them. According to recent studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a public health approach to improving the criminal and juvenile justice system has been shown to more holistically support families and communities across generations. In fact, the CDC treats criminal and juvenile justice as a public health problem.  

 

Thus, it is recommended that funding be prioritized to support a committee and/or agency to create a strategic plan to assess the criminal and juvenile justice system utilizing a public health approach to evaluate current criminal and juvenile justice programs, punishments, and practices and to then make recommendations on improving the criminal and juvenile justice systems with a public health approach. Furthermore, to ensure the next generation of professionals are better prepared for working with children and families, it is recommended that funding and/or support be prioritized to ensure cross-education to Louisiana college students pursuing careers in criminal and juvenile justice and public health. Further information, as requested, can be collected and provided.