NCJ Number
181896
Date Published
February 1996
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Open lines of communication and well-trained, informed teachers are crucial to returning juvenile offenders to mainstream education.
Abstract
Open lines of communication among agencies and school personnel are required to establish a comprehensive treatment approach for families and these children. Such open lines can prevent replication of services or lack of services. Information accessed by all juvenile practitioners must be reliable and useful. The ultimate goal of information sharing is to increase the probability that juvenile offenders will successfully exit the juvenile system and secure gainful employment in adulthood. A cluster group composed of specific agencies (e.g., educational, mental health, probation, and child protection) is needed. The group provides services or treatment for a family and meets regularly to share information and provide services without replication. Short-term strategies are usually not only cost-effective but also easy to incorporate into regular or alternative school settings. The constraining element is allocating the time needed to implement these strategies. It is important to discuss curricular concerns specific to the juvenile offender, since the curriculum is the main medium that educational practitioners use in working with students. The school setting must provide structure and document student behavior and progress toward program completion.