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The Maine Youth Community Supervision Initiative (YCSI) focuses on understanding and implementing “what works” when it comes to fostering youth and community safety and well-being for youth under community supervision. The project centers moving away from a culture of surveillance and punishment toward more developmentally appropriate responses that lead to longer-term behavior change and accountability, including options that keep more kids away from the justice system.
GOAlS & related resources
GOAlS & related resources
Goal #1: Make probation/community supervision smaller by safely diverting more young people from formal system and court involvement, to community-based supports, services, and opportunities, with a particular focus on increasing diversion away from MDOC supervision.
Goal #1: Make probation/community supervision smaller by safely diverting more young people from formal system and court involvement, to community-based supports, services, and opportunities, with a particular focus on increasing diversion away from MDOC supervision.
Related resources:
Video explaining Community-Led Youth Diversion, Annie E Casey Foundation (2023)
Diversion: The Next Frontier in Reforming Youth Justice, a compilation of research and other resources from the Sentencing Project
Guides to Community Asset-Mapping (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012) and (Center for Justice Innovation, 2020) - include materials and resources to assist with the “how-to” of finding and mapping the assets and constructive activities within communities to establish connections for youth that ensure equitable access.
Goal #2: Make probation/community supervision better by ensuring it is strength-based, time-limited, rooted in relationship-building and community partnership, and focused o positive youth development, meaningful accountability, and healing.
Goal #2: Make probation/community supervision better by ensuring it is strength-based, time-limited, rooted in relationship-building and community partnership, and focused o positive youth development, meaningful accountability, and healing.
Related resources:
AECF Family-Engaged Case Planning Guide (2022) includes materials such as sample case plans and a checklist to support probation agencies in successfully engaging and partnering with families.
Opportunity-Based Probation Manual from Pierce County (Tacoma), Washington (2022) - includes guiding principles, process details, and incentive and scoring grid examples.
BACKGROUND AND ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
BACKGROUND AND ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
In July 2024, a team from Maine participated in the Georgetown University’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform Transforming Juvenile Probation Program, with the goal of establishing a common vision for not just juvenile probation, but for all community supervision of youth in Maine. With technical support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation through August of 2025, the initiative has taken several steps towards the goals of making youth community supervision smaller and better, including improvements in diversion data collection, revisions to court forms to be shorter and more individualized, and completion of coaching models and family-engaged case planning training for Juvenile Community Corrections Officers (JCCOs).
In July 2024, a team from Maine participated in the Georgetown University’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform Transforming Juvenile Probation Program, with the goal of establishing a common vision for not just juvenile probation, but for all community supervision of youth in Maine. With technical support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation through August of 2025, the initiative has taken several steps towards the goals of making youth community supervision smaller and better, including improvements in diversion data collection, revisions to court forms to be shorter and more individualized, and completion of coaching models and family-engaged case planning training for Juvenile Community Corrections Officers (JCCOs).
Click here to view the Transforming Youth Probation Capstone Executive Summary (2025)
Click here to view the Maine Youth Community Supervision Initiative Presentation (2025)
Click here to view the Maine Family-Engaged Case Planning Fact Sheet (2026)
Leadership team
Leadership team
Steve Labonte, Regional Correctional Administrator (Region 3), Department of Corrections (Co-Facilitator)
Joe Hansen, Regional Correctional Manager (Region 1), Department of Corrections
Tara Chiasson, Juvenile Community Corrections Officer (Region 2), Department of Corrections
Judge Matthew Tice, Maine District Court, Judicial Branch
Nici Carbone and John Mannino, Judicial Branch
Tanya Pierson, Assistant District Attorney, York County
Timothy Gleason and Ayia Aribi, Youth Leaders
Jane Young, Impacted Family
Doran Wright, Executive Director, Straight Ahead Ministries
Christopher Northrop, Director, Rural Practice Clinic
Andrea Levinsky, Research Analyst II, USM
Jill Ward, Director, Center for Youth Policy & Law at Maine Law (Co-Facilitator)
Denise Merrill, Regional Associate Director, Office of Children and Families, DHHS
Joe Hufnagel, Executive Director, The Landing Place
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