Using the Court Coordination Program as a Strategic
Tool for Improved Service Delivery
By Dave Marsden
In tight budget times for state and local governments, the Court Coordination Program
(CCP) can be a valuable tool to assist localities in targeting hard-to-serve youth who may
not fit existing community program requirements, and who may be underserved and
falling through the cracks.
Normally, the CCP is geared at a caseload of youth involved in both the juvenile justice
system and the child protection system; however, CCP can also be used as a strategic tool
to target a smaller number of cases that may not be receiving the necessary services and
to maximize the potential for a positive outcome. It is a limited effort to sustain or regain
momentum in providing the most effective and efficient services possible. Localities can
use CCP as a means of learning what they are capable of, and redefining what works and
what may be possible.
A Case in Point: Keep the Court Coordination Program Small
Many localities throughout the United States have a number of youth-serving agencies,
both public and private, and a number of programs that are successful to varying degrees
in responding to delinquency, dependency, substance abuse, and mental health issues.
Each agency has a defined mission that is reflected in its budget language. Each program
defines the population it is to serve, establishes its goals, and allocates resources to
accomplish the purpose of that program.
New demands that are placed on agencies and programs create a threat to the orderly
distribution of their available resources and can create problems for courts and local
governments. This is where a scaled-down version of CCP can be useful as a tool to
improve services delivery through improved targeting, without threatening the resources
of the established service-delivery community. The key is to keep the CCP effort small.
In one locality, for example, the chief judge of the juvenile court and the various entities
engaged in responding to the needs of troubled youth are focusing on only eight youth
who loosely fit three criteria:
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They are youth court personnel may be “afraid of, not just mad at.”
They are youth who are likely to require expensive residential care or long-term
remediation.
These youth are likely to perpetuate long-standing, multigenerational family
dysfunction.
This locality is exploring the possibility of having the judge appoint a part-time court
coordinator from existing case-management resources within the community. The
designated coordinator will assist the judge in responding to this limited number of cases,
and each agency or program head has agreed to provide whatever services are required
through a specialized individual plan for each youth. Though there will be few conditions
for acceptance into this specialized caseload, all assignments to the program will
ultimately reside with the discretion of the judge.
In this locality, CCP proved an ideal solution to what was once viewed as less-than-ideal
circumstances. As one person involved with the program explained, “[For] these few
cases, we can do whatever is necessary without reducing resources designed to
accomplish our original mission.” Indeed, with the number of cases kept low, service
providers will find that their organizational resources are no longer threatened when new
demands—or cases that cannot be easily resolved through the regular court system—
come through the docket. More importantly, implementing CCP means that hard-to-serve
youth—who previously would have slipped through the cracks of the juvenile justice
system and who would potentially have continued their interaction with the criminal
justice system well into adulthood—instead receive targeted services that may help turn
their life around.
For more info on CCP, or to request Training and Technical Assistance, please contact
CCP Project Director, Dave Marsden at
Development Services Group, Inc
7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 800 East
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
Phone: 301-951-0056
dmarsden@dsgonline.com
www.dsgonline.com