Resources – Special Topics
Click here to return to the main Resources page.
Just Released!
Growth-Focused Youth Justice Case Management Guidebook
Jonathan I. Cloud & Jodi Martin, Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice, 2024
How do we effectively manage risk in a way that is informed by positive youth development research? By enhancing existing risk-need-responsivity (RNR) approaches and case management practices, Growth-Focused Youth Justice Case Management (GFCM) offers a strategic method to promote positive identity formation and support desistance. The newly released GFCM Guidebook provides a detailed review of the research, methods, and practical applications within a strategic framework to achieve behavior change and desistance from future delinquent and criminal behavior. Key to the GFCM Guidebook is the finding that identity formation plays a central role in desisting from offending. GFCM empowers all youth justice practitioners with a comprehensive toolkit to navigate and enhance their interactions with youth, fostering environments conducive to positive growth and sustainable behavior change that accomplishes our shared goals of accountability, responsibility, reduction of risk, and protection of community safety.
Growth-Focused Case Management: Using Case Planning to Involve Youth in a Growth Experience that Supports Desistance from Offending
Jonathan I. Cloud, Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice, 2021
This Practice Brief presents the new Growth-Focused Case Management (GFCM) and supervision approach, which empowers youth to form a positive identity and progress beyond mere cessation of delinquent activity. In addition to protecting community safety and respecting victims’ rights, the purpose of GFCM is to develop and manage case plans with youth that facilitate forming a positive identity with which offending is no longer compatible. The GFCM principles and four-phase framework, detailed in this brief, are supported by evidence-based research and are currently being implemented in several jurisdictions throughout the country. This brief also presents how the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin embraced and integrated GFCM into their juvenile probation experience in order to achieve better outcomes for their youth under supervision; while Milwaukee DYFS is still early in its GFCM implementation process, the preliminary outcomes are already very promising.
Webinar – Compliance Is Not Enough: Empowering Youth to Grow Out of Offending [VIDEO]
Presenters: Jonathan I. Cloud (Youth Justice Consultant), Robert Bermingham (Fairfax County, Virginia), & Melissa Graham (Milwaukee County, Wisconsin)
Hosts: Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice & OJJDP’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC), 2021