Focusing on Significant Issues for Reentry and
Family Engagement
Simon Gonsoulin, NDTAC; and Pat Frost, SDE, Nebraska
Objectives of Session
 The group will explore common barriers or roadblocks
experienced by youth attempting to reenter successfully
school and the community at large after incarceration.
 The participants will brainstorm ideas that N or D coordinators
can put in place to strategically address these barriers with a
focus on family engagement as a component of the reentry
planning process.
 The group will engage in preliminary discussion focused on
connecting the monitoring event to immediate and future
technical assistance pertaining to reentry and family
engagement.
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What Is Juvenile Justice Reentry?
 Reentry refers to the process and experience of reentering society
after a term of incarceration (Youth Reentry Task Force, 2009).
 “A coordinated set of activities for the youth, designed within an
outcome-oriented process, which promotes successful movement
from the community to a correctional program setting, and from a
correctional program setting to postincarceration activities.”
This definition identifies three elements of successful transition:
1. It is coordinated.
2. It is an outcome-oriented process.
3. It promotes successful movement between the facility and the
community (Griller-Clark, NDTAC Transition Toolkit, 2008).
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Why Is Reentry Planning Important?
 National crime rates are higher and public safety is compromised
because many youth exiting detention are not afforded necessary
supportive services when reentering their communities.
 One study found that, within 12 months of their reentry to the
community, only 30% of youth were involved in either school or work
(Burllis, 2002).
 In a recent study of homeless youth, between 10 and 17 years of
age, the Wilder Research Center found that 46% had been in a
correctional facility; of those, 44% exited into an unstable housing
situation ( Owen, 2007).
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Why Is Reentry Planning Important?
(continued)
 Many within the justice system, the human services system, and the
community have come to recognize that returning young people to
their communities with only marginal investments in their
rehabilitation and little support for their positive integration into
community life is a recipe for failure (Center for Law and Social
Policy, 2006).
 Of youth released from foster care, group homes, or juvenile
detention centers, 25% spent their first night either in a shelter or on
the street (Clark, 1996).
 Youth who have been transferred to the adult system face additional
reentry problems. Juveniles incarcerated in adult facilities are 30%
more likely to be rearrested than those retained in the JJ system,
both sooner and for more serious offenses (Bishop, 1996).
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Why Have Reentry Planning, Funding, and
Practices?
 Youth require planned supports to reintegrate into their
families, schools, and communities.
 Youth require a Positive Youth Development Model of care.
 Effective reentry services reduce recidivism.
 Fostering improved family relationships and functioning,
reintegration into school, and mastery of independent life
skills, can help youth build resiliency and positive
development to divert them from future delinquent and other
problematic behaviors.
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Goal of Effective Reentry
 Typical goals for community-based reentry services
include: social integration into family and
community systems of care, reduction in recidivism,
housing stability, advancement in school,
employment, and mastery of life skills.
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Principles and Promising Practices in Reentry Services
 Prerelease planning
 Reentry services in the community where returning youth live
 Reentry services that proactively address developmental
deficits
 Focus on permanent family/guardianship connections
 Recognition of diverse needs of returning youth
 Structured workforce preparation, employment, and school
attendance
 Better use of leisure time
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Focus on Education and Employment
 Attendance at school is a strong protective factor against
delinquency. Youth who attend school also are much less likely to
commit crimes in the short term and long term also.
 More than one-half of the youth in detention have not completed
grade 8, and two-thirds of those leaving formal custody do not return
to school.
 Employment is another very strong predictor of criminal behavior.
Individuals who have a job are less likely to commit crime (Uggen,
2003).
 Research consistently finds that recidivism often occurs just after
release, sometimes within a few days.
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Why Youth Don’t “Make It” With Our Current Efforts
 Youth are considered difficult to manage.
 Schools face too much pressure to excel through
performance on standardized test scores.
 Schoolwork completed in detention/secure care is not counted
by schools toward credit completion.
 Zero tolerance policies affect reentry youth.
 State and local legislation place reentry youth in alternative
placements as a matter of standard practice.
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Recommendations: “Think Exit at Entry”
 Records exchange is needed—minimum number of days,
standardized records, back-up/tickler system.
 Direct planning is done with facility, youth, family, and school
(youth’s plan for personal future).
 Monitor each student’s progress in school community at 5, 10,
15, and 30 days—don’t wait for 60 and 90 days out.
 Academic programs in facilities must reflect the public school
curriculum, and a vocational program must extend beyond the
work of the institution.
 Vocational classes should develop portfolios.
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Recommendations: “Think Exit at Entry”
(continued)
 For academic classes, provide report cards and list academic
achievements.
 Address mental health and substance abuse needs, if appropriate.
 Stay in touch with the probation officer about school-related
successes and problems.
 Share information about skills learned and specialized treatment.
 Provide prerelease visits to community and school (passes and
furloughs).
 Identify and provide aftercare/reentry services and support to help
address family needs that will assist the youth in being successful in
school and/or employment.
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Family Engagement, Nebraska Style
 A guide to using “Beyond the Bake Sale” in school—
PowerPoint slides for future technical assistance
 Transitions for Life—A parent training institute
 Parent to Parent Network—Parents empowering
parents, an advocacy initiative
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