Bridging Research and Practice a Handbook for Implementing Research-Informed Practices in Juvenile Probation

Bridging Research and Practice A Handbook for Implementing Research-Informed Practices in Juvenile Probation Samantha Harvell, Teresa Derrick-Mills, Chloe Warnberg, Megan Russo, Constance Hull, Andreea Matei With Mary K. Winkler, Hanna Love, Janeen Buck Willison, Akiva Liberman September 2019 urban.org Bridging Research and Practice: A Handbook for Implementing Research-Informed Practices in Juvenile Probation About the Bridge Project Acknowledgements This handbook was developed as part of the Bridging Research and This project was supported by cooperative agreement number Practice Project to Advance Juvenile Justice and Safety (Bridge 2015-MU-MU-K002 awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice Project), a cooperative agreement funded by the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention and managed by the National Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and managed by the Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. We are grateful National Institute of Justice that launched in 2015. The goal of to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban the Bridge Project is to facilitate the translation of juvenile justice to advance its mission. research into actionable policy and practice changes. Although we have learned a great deal about adolescent development The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations and effective approaches to working with youth, there is very expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not little practical guidance on how juvenile justice practitioners can necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice nor integrate this information into their daily practices.1 The Bridge should they be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, Project aims to fill that gap, translating key research findings into or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or concrete recommendations for juvenile probation practitioners. the insights and recommendations of Urban experts. Further Other resources from the Bridge Project are available on the information on the Urban Institute’s funding principles is project website: https://urbn.is/bridge. available at urban.org/fundingprinciples. The authors would like to thank Jennifer Tyson and Barbara Tatum Kelley at the National Institute of Justice and Brecht Donoghue at the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs as well as members of the informal work group who provided input on the project including Nancy Arrigona, Grace Bauer, Steve Bishop, Shabazz Boozer, Jeanne Brandner, Jaclyn Cirrina, Kari Harp, Nathan Lowe, Mark Mertens, Edward Mulvey, Gail Norman, Ron Quiros, John Ryals, Bob Schwartz, Tessa Upin, Gina Vincent, and Josh Weber. Thanks also to Shannon Ryan for designing the handbook. 1 Contents 1. About This Guide......................................................................2 2. Assessing Organizational Readiness and Laying the Groundwork for Change ............................................................8 3. Establishing Systems for Continuous Quality Improvement and Sustaining the Change .......................................................15 4. Leading a Change Initiative .......................................................18 5. Defining a Clear Mission...........................................................23 6. Coordinating with External Partners ............................................27 7. Aligning and Building Staff Competencies .....................................34 8. Aligning Policies and Practices ...................................................51 9. Aligning Data Systems .............................................................63 10. Implementing Research in Practice: A Call to Action........................69 Appendix A: Bridging Research and Practice in Juvenile Probation: Executive Summary.....................................................................72 Appendix B: Service Referral Matrix Examples ...................................75 Endnotes ..................................................................................80 Bridging Research and Practice: A Handbook for Implementing Research-Informed Practices in Juvenile Probation 2 About This Guide At the end of each chapter in this handbook, you will find Throughout this handbook you will see information three boxes highlighting continuous quality improvement boxes, example boxes, and tool boxes. Example boxes are tips, partner engagement tips, and questions for meant to be illustrative of real world applications of the consideration related to the content of the chapter. research, however, this does not suggest that the featured jurisdictions engage in best practices in all their activities or that these are the only jurisdictions applying research- informed practices. Tool boxes highlight resources we Continuous Quality found in our literature search process that align with the Improvement Tips research discussed in the handbook; they do not represent an exhaustive list of all existing resources. Information Boxes pull out key takeaways from the previous text, Partner highlight relevant context, and pull Engagement Tips in selected information from other publications associated with this project. Example Boxes highlight how Questions for probation agencies around the country Consideration have applied these concepts in practice. Tool Boxes highlight existing resources that would support agencies in assessing or implementing the items discussed. Internal Links styled in bold blue Link font will jump to relevant content in the document. 1. About This Guide 3 Over the past several decades, we have learned a great deal about adolescent development and what works to improve outcomes for youth involved with the juvenile justice system.2 We have also learned much about how to successfully implement justice programs.3 This handbook pulls together the best thinking from both of those areas and outlines strategies for successfully implementing research- informed practices in one specific context: juvenile probation. Who Is the Target Audience? effect all the types of changes a research-informed approach entails. They need the active support of their department, agency, or office to integrate research-informed practices into juvenile This handbook is informed by and designed for juvenile probation probation operations and systems. This handbook provides practitioners at the state and local levels (particularly agency leaders a framework for leaders to embrace the research-informed and supervisors) who want to align policy and practice with research approach and promote successful implementation of a new way and promote better outcomes for their agencies and youth. We hope of doing business—including anticipating likely speedbumps and it is also helpful for stakeholders outside the probation field working using problem-solving to avoid them—and outlines supervisors’ to align juvenile justice practices with research on adolescent and external partners’ roles in supporting success for justice- development and on what improves outcomes for youth. involved youth. It is important to note that although agency leaders are the primary focus for this resource, frontline staff are equally critical to success. An earlier report—Bridging Research and Practice in How Was This Handbook Developed? Juvenile Probation: Rethinking Strategies to Promote Long-Term Change—synthesized the literature on practices that improve We used a systematic, research-informed approach* to gather outcomes for youth and translated those findings into concrete the best evidence in juvenile probation about what promotes recommendations for probation officers working directly with long-term behavioral change and the best evidence from youth. In fact, a defining feature of a research-informed approach implementation research regarding how to manage a change to probation is that it empowers officers to act as an intervention process in justice agencies. To frame the information in this in and of themselves, using each interaction as an opportunity for handbook, we used implementation science** to guide our working toward long-term growth. We noted then that though search for research documenting implementation and change- juvenile probation officers have the power to change their own management strategies and challenges. Thus, this handbook interactions with youth, they operate in an environment of supports your innovations by drawing more fully on the research policies, procedures, rules, and expectations. Individually, they described in the following two other resources: cannot * Research informed vs. evidence based: Both of these approaches are systematic and ground the information in the best research available. The difference is that evidence- based research sets a particular standard for what the best research is, usually requiring that multiple studies show the same results and that the strength of the results be tested using some kind of experimental design. Research informed still looks at the quality of the research, but it casts a wider net. See Harvell et al. 2018 and Derrick-Mills et al. 2019 for a detailed discussion. ** Implementation science is “the study of factors that influence the full and effective use of innovations in practice” (NIRN 2015). One of the leading organizations in this field is the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN). You can learn more about implementation science on their website at https://nirn.fpg.unc.edu/national- implementation-research-network. Bridging Research

Load more