Vera

Parents who struggle to control chronically misbehaving youth sometimes turn to “status offender” systems for help. Until recently, status offender systems regularly referred these youth to juvenile court, where they were subject to the same punitive interventions as youth charged with criminal activity. Today, a new paradigm for status offender services is emerging: refer at-risk young people and their families to social service programs in their communities and use the juvenile justice system as a last resort.  Making Court the Last Resort: A New Focus for Supporting Families in Crisis, describes this new paradigm by highlighting successful status offender system reforms in Florida, New York, and Connecticut.

This report is the 10th in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from October 1, 2007, to December 31, 2007.

The current report describes

1. progress in implementing the research design and reviewing case files;
2. additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children's Services has asked Vera to review;
3. progress in interviewing clinical trial participants and caregivers;
4. progress in interviewing key respondents;
5. preparing the final report; and
6. next steps.

Following up on a 2005 Vera report about FAP, Vera conducted an exploratory study for the Administration for Children's Services, interviewing 100 families who had approached FAP offices in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens between March and September in 2006. Researchers interviewed 75 of those families again after three months. Our investigation suggests that FAP is helping families served. Many of the young people interviewed received prompt referrals to services and showed signs of improved mental health and better family relations three months after approaching FAP.

This report is the ninth in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from July 1, 2007, to September 30, 2007.

This report describes

1. progress in implementing the research design and reviewing case files;
2. additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children’s Services has asked Vera to review;
3. progress in interviewing clinical trial participants and caregivers;
4. progress in interviewing key respondents;
5. preparing the final report; and
6. next steps.

This report is the eighth in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from April 1, 2007, to June 30, 2007.

This report describes

1. progress in reviewing case file documents;
2. additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children’s Services has asked Vera to review;
3. progress in interviewing clinical trial participants and caregivers;
4. issues relating to the review of medical information and obtaining hospital records;
5. progress in obtaining and reviewing documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act; and
6. next steps.

This report is the seventh in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from January 1, 2007, to March 31, 2007.

This report describes

1. progress in reviewing case file documents;
2. additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children’s Services has asked Vera to review;
3. progress in interviewing key respondents, caregivers, and clinical trial participants;
4. progress in reviewing clinical trial protocols and related documents;
5. outreach;
6. data entry and analysis; and
7. next steps.

In 2006, as one of only three states that tried 16- and 17-year-olds in the adult criminal justice system, Connecticut’s practices were out of step with best practices and scientific research showing significant cognitive differences between older adolescents and adults. To align the state’s policies with mainstream practice, the state’s General Assembly established the Juvenile Jurisdiction Planning and Implementation Committee. This report from the committee, written with support from Vera’s Center on Youth Justice, proposes to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 16 to 18, effective July 1, 2009.

In 2005, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services established a task force to develop statewide juvenile justice indicators that could support local and state planning. This report from that task force, presenting the state’s first-ever set of multi-agency indicators, identifies and calculates key data in five central areas of the juvenile justice system, from arrest through disposition. Section I describes each of the five system areas, provides a synopsis of the indicators for each area, and highlights some initial observations revealed by 2004 data. Section II presents statewide aggregate juvenile justice indicators. Section III provides local-level data for each of New York’s 62 counties.

This report is the sixth in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from October 1, 2006, to December 31, 2006.

The current report describes

1. progress in reviewing case file documents;
2. additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children’s Services has asked Vera to review;
3. progress in interviewing key respondents, caregivers, and clinical trial participants:
4. progress in reviewing policy documents;
5. progress in reviewing clinical trial protocols;
6. progress in reviewing Office for Human Research Protections documents;
7. outreach; and
8. next steps.

This report is the fifth in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from July 1, 2006, to September 30, 2006.

This report describes

1. progress in implementing the research design;
2. additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children's Services has asked Vera to review;
3. institutional Review Board review of child and caregiver interviews;
4. outreach;
5. next steps; and
6. updated analysis of Child Care Review Service administrative data that includes new cases.

This report is the fourth in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from April 1, 2006, to June 30, 2006.

This report describes

1. implementation of the research design;
2. institutional Review Board review of key respondent interviews;
3. activities of Vera's Advisory Board;
4. outreach; and
5. next steps.

This report is the third in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from January 1, 2006, to March 31, 2006.

This report describes

1. implementation of the document review;
2. policies to prevent disclosure of confidential information;
3. Vera Advisory Board activity;
4. institutional Review Board (IRB) developments;
5. outreach activities; and
6. next steps.

This report is the second in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from October 1, 2005 to December 30, 2005.

This report describes

1. lessons learned from the planning process;
2. development of a research protocol and IRB submission;
3. advisory Board and IRB member recruitment;
4. outreach activities;
5. testimony at City Council hearing; and
6. next steps.

This report also contains two appendices: charts that describe some of the characteristics of the foster children believed to have enrolled in clinical trials and the testimony of Vera's director, Michael Jacobson, at a recent hearing before the New York City Council.

A growing body of evidence suggests that schools and other child-serving systems can help young people with behavioral problems by asking whether they have lost someone they love and responding constructively when answers suggest a child is grieving. Such actions could influence whether a child's behavioral problems spiral into ever wider levels of misbehavior or subside with appropriate help in confronting the challenges of their loss. In 2003, staff at the Vera Institute of Justice began working with a small number of intermediate and elementary schools in New York City to explore the links between loss and student misbehavior. Vera's goal was to identify students who had lost a loved one and develop therapeutic responses to help them. This report, which draws upon existing research, promising practices, and the experience of Vera personnel, is designed to increase policymakers' and practitioners' awareness of how the loss of a loved one influences children's behavioral problems. It also offers suggestions on how to identify grieving children and intervene in cycles of misbehavior tied to grief.

When families are struggling to communicate, trying to control the behavior of an unruly child, or experiencing a crisis, they often look for outside help and support. For many families in New York, the place to turn is the status offender system. In December 2002, New York City's Department of Probation and the Administration of Children's Services (ACS)—the two agencies primarily responsible for administering and funding the city's status offender system—collaborated to launch the Family Assessment Program (FAP), an innovative approach to intake and assessment. FAP seeks to swiftly connect children and families to appropriate services in the community, reduce the city's reliance on family court in Persons in Need of Supervision (PINS) cases, and decrease the number of out-of-home placements for PINS youth. Commissioned by Probation and ACS, this report assesses the progress FAP has made in its first two-and-a-half years, finding that the city is already reaping significant benefits: connecting families to services more quickly and making fewer court referrals.

This report is the first in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from July 1, 2005, to September 30, 2005.

This report describes

1. efforts to gain access to necessary information;
2. outreach activities;
3. preliminary planning to establish our methodology;
4. the recruitment of an independent advisory board; and
5. next steps.

In recent years, New York City has experienced unprecedented growth in the size and diversity of its immigrant population. As a result, a significant proportion of city residents have limited English proficiency or do not speak English at all. Finding ways to overcome language barriers is an emerging field, and New York City criminal and juvenile justice agencies have made great strides in addressing the needs of people with limited English proficiency. To help these agencies continue to develop cost-effective strategies for tackling language barriers, staff from the Vera Institute of Justice spoke with agencies and organizations locally and across the nation to discuss ways in which they have improved access to services for people with limited English proficiency. The resulting report, Translating Justice, is a summary of diverse efforts to bridge the language gap. It is intended as a guide for New York City criminal and juvenile justice agencies, which includes language access planning; translation of written communications; using bilingual employees; using professional interpreters; pooling resources; and using technology to overcome language barriers.

Home-based treatment that combines family therapy and individual treatment to reduce adolescent drug use and address mental health problems and behavioral issues is now widely recognized as best practice. Vera's Adolescent Portable Therapy (APT) program weaves these elements into a coherent treatment model that can be practiced consistently. APT's treatment manual gives service providers and program planners a theoretical framework and procedures, techniques and case examples that will enable them to implement the APT model easily and effectively. The manual emphasizes: Strength-based approaches to assessment and treatment; Integrated Cognitive-Behavioral (CBT) and Family Therapy techniques; Practical steps for helping adolescents reconnect with school;
Techniques for helping adolescents and families to function within larger systems;
Collaborative strategies for providing treatment within and across complex criminal and social service systems; Effective program staffing strategies; and
Techniques for live field-based supervision of therapists.

Over the past three years, child welfare and probation leaders in New York State have been transforming the state's status offender system to provide timely support to troubled teens and their families in their communities and rely less on courts, law enforcement, and detention. This Issue in Brief, produced by Vera's national Youth Justice Program, examines how this dramatic shift is helping get disobedient, but not delinquent, children back on track while yielding significant cost savings. Jurisdictions looking to better serve their own status offender populations will find useful models in this report's summary of the lessons learned in New York State.

Allegations of severe child abuse and neglect may require quick, coordinated responses by child welfare and law enforcement in order to reduce trauma to children and to arrest and prosecute perpetrators. This report examines the operations and outcomes of the Instant Response Team program, a collaboration between the New York City Administration for Children's Services and the New York Police Department that aims to have child protective workers, police, and, when appropriate, prosecutors respond to reports of severe child abuse or neglect within two hours and to conduct joint interviews of victims. The report found a measurable impact on services to children, and staff from all three agencies express support for the program.

Adolescents who leave foster care without permission may encounter dangerous situations and place burdens on many government agencies, including child welfare and police. Using data from New York City's Administration for Children's Services, Vera researchers interviewed adolescents with chronic AWOL histories as well as staff at foster care facilities. The report shows that most teens going AWOL from group care stay with friends and return to care voluntarily but that one-third are nvolved in high-risk situations such as drug use or physical violence. The study suggests that group care staff could provide more activities to counteract the boredom that drives many teens to run away.

The rising incarceration rates among women have raised concerns in many quarters, including child welfare. This report shows, for the first time, how many children in foster care have mothers in jail or prison. While Vera researchers found that only a small percentage of the mothers of children in care are incarcerated for 30 days or more, the number of affected children is significant enough to justify programs that allow them to visit their mothers in jail or prison. The report also supports earlier research showing that the majority of women were incarcerated after their children were placed in care.

Affirm was launched in 2002 as a strategy for preventing school violence. The one-year demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) sought to train and coach school-based law enforcement staff—known in New York City as school safety agents—in the theory and techniques of positive reinforcement. Affirm's curriculum, developed with the Oregon Social Learning Center, is presented in this easy-to-use, step-by-step manual that guides trainers in the classroom instruction and field coaching that made up the Affirm program. The NYPD's School Safety Training Unit has incorporated a condensed version of this curriculum into their training of all new school safety agents.

When it comes to succeeding in school, foster children face unique challenges and obstacles that have them lagging behind their peers. This kit, designed primarily for use by caseworkers and educators, lays out those challenges and offers some simple, inexpensive lessons and tools that can enhance the educational experience of children in foster care. The lessons — including how to facilitate school registration and how to increase adult attendance at parent/teacher conferences — can be adapted for use in any community. They are drawn from the experience of Safe and Smart, a joint project of the Vera Institute and the New York City Administration for Children's Services that placed caseworkers in schools to support foster children.

Para prevenir la violencia entre los adolescentes, debemos entender sus causas. Este informe se basa en un trabajo de campo realizado durante cinco años en una comunidad inmigrante de la ciudad de Nueva York con la intención de describir cómo el salto generacional que separa a los adolescente de sus padres, ampliado por la inmigración, lleva a estos adolescentes a confiar en grupos violentos de compañeros para su protección. Investigaciones anteriores han explicado la violencia adolescente entre los inmigrantes como resultado de la alienación cultural, pero esta investigación sugiere que gran parte de la violencia entre los inmigrantes es una respuesta pragmática a las condiciones del vecindario. Una vez que estos adolescentes dejan sus vecindarios o las amenazas a su seguridad desaparecen, generalmente ponen fin a su relación con amigos violentos.

Esta publicación está también disponible en inglés.
This publication is also available in English.