NEWS AND EVENTS

FALL/Winter 2009

It has been a busy Fall at the Court with important strides in both community outreach and court accountability. In addition to a variety of other outreach efforts, JAJCF partnered with Judge Sophia Hall, the Department of Probation and Court Services, and the Chicago Urban League to co-host a Transforming Justice Conference. This conference sought to bring restorative justice principles to life around seven area high schools. The conference brought together judges, state's attorneys, public defenders, probation officers, and police officers with school principals, other school personnel, community and faith-based service providers, and parents and youth to discuss the challenges to youth in their communities and how we can work more effectively together. Using the restorative practice of circles, all parties were encouraged to share their experiences and concerns. The conference was designed to build relationships that will be critical to fundamentally changing our response to troubling youth behavior.

Within the Child Protection Division, the Family Visiting Task Force hosted two days of court-wide training with Norma Ginther, a master trainer from the Institute on Human Services, on the critical role of frequent and meaningful visits between youth in care and their family both in minimizing trauma for children and in facilitating timely permanence. This training was extraordinarily well received and has already begun to create a major shift in court practice related to family contact.

Also this Fall and Winter, in partnership with the Balanced and Restorative Justice Task Force and with tremendous help from the Chapin Hall Center for Children, JAJCF has been working with all of the offices of the Juvenile Justice Division to produce the Division's first public statistical report in over two decades. This report will provide statistical and narrative information regarding the Division's activities, the progress of its various improvement initiatives, and priorities for ongoing court improvement. This document represents a tremendous joint effort across all of the offices and an important milestone in the Court's commitment to accountability to the communities it serves.

Spring/Summer 2009

The Community Partnership Team has expanded its outreach, this time to the faith-based community.  An initial session was held at the Court in March inviting clergy members from throughout the Chicago area to learn more about the Juvenile Court process and to begin a series of discussions about how the Court can work more effectively in partnership with the faith-based community.  With over 50 attendees, addressed by IDCFS Director Erwin McEwen and Chief of the State's Attorney's Juvenile Division Kathleen Bankhead among others, this represented an important start to what is hoped to be a productive dialogue.

In Child Protection, two major initiatives are underway.  The Youth Empowerment Initiative engaged ten wards of the Court in a six-session work group to both provide feedback to the Court about how to more effectively engage youth in the court process as well as to guide Court practice and policy related to youth involvement.  They presented their report to judges, attorneys, and other Court and DCFS personnel and are now working with the project to reach out to other youth to solicit their engagement in their own court cases.  Additionally, the Family Visiting Team is working with Norma Ginther, a nationally recognized speaker on family contact, to develop a strategy to fundamentally change the way that the Court thinks about contact between biological parents and their children—as well as children and their siblings.  An initial “trial run” of a planned courtwide training was conducted to very positive reviews overall.  Based on this feedback, revisions are being made to the curriculum and two courtwide sessions are planned for the Fall.

April 27th through May 1st , the Court celebrated its 3rd Annual Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) Week.  BARJ is a philosophy that recognizes the responsibility of the Court to balance three key stakeholders interests in the system—the victim of the crime, the youth who perpetrated it, and the community where it was committed.  As BARJ principles assert, the responsibility of the Court is to hold the youth accountable for his actions by requiring him (to the extent possible) to “repair the harm” that he has caused to his victim and to recognize that he has also harmed the community where the crime took place.  The system further seeks to help the young person to develop the skills he will need to successfully avoid further contact with the Court.  BARJ Week this year featured:

• an introduction to BARJ practices for the public and a celebration of progress to date;

• training for judges, attorneys, and probation officers on different BARJ practices with youth actively involved in the presentation of this training;

• an awards ceremony for youth and service providers at a reception for dignitaries;

• BARJ circles in each courtroom to provide Court personnel with personal experience of the power of BARJ practices;

• a circle at a local high school between students and local police officers, with students taking a major leadership role, to discuss the challenging relationship between the police and youth in many of our communities.

FALL/Winter 2008

The Court's Community Partnership (CP) Team is involved in two major efforts this Fall. First, it is serving as the community advisory board for the Chicago Public School 's federally-funded Youth Engaged in Schools program. This effort represents an extremely important partnership between the Chicago Public Schools and the court system to both: 1) prevent unnecessary court referrals by identifying at-risk youth and providing help and support, particularly in the crucial transition from 8 th grade to high school, and 2) for those youth who do experience school disruption due to detention or incarceration, to facilitate a smooth transition back to their community or other appropriate school setting. Encouraging school attendance and success is critical to helping youth to avoid ongoing court involvement.

Additionally, the CP Team is working in partnership with a broad base of community players, including the South Suburban Mayors and Managers, the South Suburban Association of Chiefs of Police, and South Suburban School Administrators to respond to a dramatic increase in juvenile court referrals in the Southern Suburbs by using restorative justice practices to avoid unnecessary formal court referral and processing. This effort is being kicked-off with an Administrators Forum for public officials to get them fully onboard and excited about the potential impact of restorative justice practices to be followed by a Community Summit to explore how such practices might be implemented in south suburban communities.