As a critical step in New York State’s juvenile justice reform process, Vera is assisting the Cuomo administration in examining and identifying strengths and weaknesses in the state’s juvenile justice funding structure. The aim is to create an effective funding system that will support and encourage best practices in juvenile justice on the ground, ensure positive outcomes for youth, families, and communities, and save money for both the state and counties.

Established in 2001, Vera’s Adolescent Portable Therapy (APT) project provides substance use and mental health treatment for adolescents involved in, or at risk of becoming involved in, the juvenile justice system. The program’s family counseling model of service helps families build on their inherent strengths to support their adolescents in making positive changes in their lives. APT also helps other programs to improve their practice through training and technical assistance.

To create better outcomes for youth, families, and communities, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) has partnered with Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) and the Missouri Youth Services Institute (MYSI) to design a new model for state juvenile justice custody that is therapeutic, community-based, and grounded in national best practices. Through the “Brooklyn for Brooklyn Initiative” (B4B), Vera has assisted OCFS in planning and implementing a pilot of the model that is tailored to the needs of youth in Brooklyn, and is working with OCFS to expand the model statewide.

The Vera Institute of Justice is partnering with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA), the New York City Family Court, and Casey Family Programs to conduct an operational review of the abuse and neglect case process flow in the Queens and Bronx family courts. Vera is combining data analyses and findings from interviews and observations to describe how the abuse and neglect cases are processed, identify causes of delay, and develop specific actions that the court and agencies can take to accelerate permanent living arrangements for children.

Close to Home seeks to improve reentry outcomes when people return to the community from jail. Program staff will partner with jails, community-corrections agencies, and community-based organizations in two jurisdictions to help them apply a family-focused approach to reentry planning. The project's lessons are expected to be applicable to jurisdictions throughout the country.

Common Justice offers an alternative to the traditional court process for youth charged with felonies such as assault, robbery, and burglary. Project staff bring together people immediately affected by a crime to acknowledge the harm done, address the needs of the harmed party, and agree on sanctions other than incarceration to hold the responsible party accountable. The project, based in Brooklyn, New York, seeks to repair harm, break cycles of violence, and decrease the system’s heavy reliance on incarceration.

Vera's Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit (CBAU), in conjunction with the Center on Youth Justice, is working with the North Carolina Youth Accountability Planning Task Force to estimate the costs and benefits associated with raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction.

In half of U.S. states and the District of Columbia, a parent who does not ensure that his or her child attends school regularly can be charged with educational neglect and referred to child protective services. Most of these cases in New York State involve teenagers, even though experts and current research agree that the child protective system is not well equipped to address teenage absenteeism. Vera is working with the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) to study and improve the government’s response to these cases, with support from Casey Family Programs.

The Family Justice Program is partnering with the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice to make services more family-oriented in the agency’s detention centers, youth development centers, and group homes. A consistent, systemwide focus on the strengths of youth and their families is expected to help young people succeed after their release.

Vera is helping the Ohio Department of Youth Services (DYS) develop and refine tools to establish and implement a family-oriented approach in its policies and practices. The partnership will enhance Ohio’s ability to serve young people in its juvenile justice system as well as their families. It will also advance an approach other jurisdictions can use to work more closely with youth and their social networks. The project is supported by the Public Welfare Foundation.

The Family Justice Program is partnering with the Performance-based Standards Learning Institute (PbS Li) to develop national standards for juvenile correctional facilities to engage incarcerated youths’ family members in all aspects of the youths’ incarceration. PbS Li has developed a system of Performance-based Standards (PbS) that allows agencies and facilities to identify, monitor, and improve conditions and treatment services for incarcerated youth using national standards and outcome measures. This project is funded by the Public Welfare Foundation.

In 2007, Vera was awarded a grant by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to participate in the Models for Change initiative, an effort to create successful and replicable models of juvenile justice reform through targeted investments in key states. The initiative seeks to accelerate progress toward a fairer, more effective, and more developmentally sound juvenile justice system that holds young people accountable for their actions, provides for their rehabilitation, protects them from harm, increases their life chances, and manages the risk they pose to themselves and to the public.

CYJ has been working with four New York Counties—Erie (Buffalo), Onondaga (Syracuse), Monroe (Rochester), and Albany County—to develop a reliable way for judges to decide whether arrested youth should be released, referred to community-based programs under supervision, or detained before trial. CYJ staff are also helping these counties develop a continuum of community-based supervision options for arrested youth. This reform is intended to reserve juvenile detention for youth who pose a risk of re-offending or failing to appear in court and keep youth who do not pose these risks connected to their communities, without compromising public safety.

In 2011, Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) began providing research and technical assistance to help New York State juvenile justice officials develop a strategy to reform detention practices and policies statewide. These reforms include the development of an risk assessment instrument (RAI) to be implemented in upstate counties by 2012.

The Family Justice Program’s Reentry Is Relational project trained participating staff at two prisons in New Mexico and Oklahoma, and at their corresponding probation and parole offices, to help incarcerated people draw on their social networks as they transition from prison to parole. By enhancing case management practices at the facilities and promoting more collaboration between prison and parole staff, the project had the goal of improving reentry outcomes for people coming home from prison. To sustain changes in practices and policies, the initiative also provided these institutions with technical assistance and evaluation support.

The Unaccompanied Children Program coordinates a nationwide effort to increase volunteer, or pro bono, legal representation for immigrant children with no parents or adult guardians to assist them as they undergo removal (deportation) proceedings. These children may be fleeing poverty, war, or other dangerous circumstances on their own, or they may have lost contact with an adult along the way. They are held in shelters or detention centers run by the Division of Unaccompanied Children’s Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).