← Youth Justice Transformation in Action
Youth Justice Transformation in Action
Managing Change: The King County Experience (ft. Robert Gant and Aaron Parker)
00:42:22
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- [00:00]
Robert Gant
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Jody Martin
Welcome to Season two of Youth Justice Transformation in Action. We are the RFK National Resource center for Juvenile justice and we are on a mission to transform the youth justice system by partnering with people like you who are passionate about improving outcomes for youth, families and communities you serve. I'm Jody Martin.
- [00:26]
John Toole
John and I'm John Toole. This season we are excited to highlight jurisdictions across the country who partnered with us through the OJJDP funded Denison Mondoro Probation and Juvenile Justice System Enhancement Project. You will learn about their experiences, including their challenges, innovative solutions and valuable lessons learned, and have an opportunity to explore how their successful reform efforts may be replicated within your state or local community.
- [00:51]
Jody Martin
In today's episode, Managing the King County Experience, John speaks with our guests Erin Parker and Robert Gant, Juvenile Court Services Managers in King County, Washington. Robert and Erin share how their court has shifted toward a more balanced approach that includes a therapeutic model which focuses on treating the underlying causes of crime rather than solely responding to the symptoms. They will describe the important steps that they took to manage and lead these reform efforts from inspiring a shared vision, collaborating and co creating with staff and stakeholders, challenging the process and the importance of measuring outcomes. Robert and Erin will also share what it means to go slow, to go fast during the implementation process. Thank you for joining us.
- [01:36]
John Toole
Greetings everyone and welcome to this episode of our podcast series. Today we have the privilege of featuring two prominent members of the Juvenile Court Services staff in King county who were instrumental in leading significant reforms following the probation system review work that we did in partnership with King county and the Juvenile Court Services. I'd like to welcome Robert Gant, who is a Juvenile Court Services Manager, and his colleague Aaron Parker who is also a Juvenile Court Services Manager. Welcome to you both. Thanks for joining us. We look forward to the conversation and if you don't mind, Robert, could you start us off and tell a little bit more about you?
- [02:16]
Robert Gant
Thank you John and thank you for having me as part of this podcast. Yes, as you mentioned, my name is Robert Gantt and I'm a Juvenile Court Services Manager here in King County. Aaron and I, we kind of split our leadership roles within the court and I focus primarily on many of our community facing programs and so I'm blessed to be able to co labor with some great staff around our Juvenile Justice Assessment Team, our Community Accountability Board which is our diversion program, the C SEC work that we do here in King County. We have a beautiful new resource center in our new building that I get to co labor with staff in there with and a Variety of community based contracts that I oversee as well. And then we also have an education and employment training program. And then the last is our first center, which is family intervention and restorative services. So again, a lot of that work entails being able to partner with community and be able to offer a variety of opportunities for the young people that may be part of our court.
- [03:11]
John Toole
Thank you, Robert.
- [03:12]
Aaron Parker
Aaron Parker Juvenile Court Services Manager I oversee half of the court and he oversees the other half. My focus is on the probation side. So our field units with our probation counselors that serve geographically different families in the area, screening, which is the unit that sits at the front door of our detention center. And then our BHR program, which is our version of juvenile drug court here that has a wider scope in terms of focus around not only just drug and alcohol diagnoses, but also mental health. And not as much focus around abstinence as drug court, really the harm reduction model. And looking at how do we have a more therapeutic lens of the youth that are needing those services in our court.
- [03:57]
John Toole
Aaron, Robert, thank you again. What a wide array of initiatives and work that you're leading in King County. I'm wondering, maybe the audience would like to know as well, what drew you both to the field of juvenile justice? Why do you do what you do?
- [04:11]
Robert Gant
I mean, I think for me it really goes back to the early 90s, honestly. And at that time I was all things basketball. All things basketball for sure. And so I had the opportunity to become what was called a high school intern working at one of our parks and recreation here with after school programming. And anybody that kind of came up in the 90s around here, that was the height of the crack epidemic. And also a lot of gang culture stuff was happening within our community. And being able to work with young people that were kind of in the mix of all of that really kind of opened my eyes to some of the injustices that were actually happening. Many of young people were in survival mode during that time and unfortunately they got caught up with the legal system. And I always say for myself, I'm so blessed to have basketball because I was in the mix of everything. And that always kind of kept me in a space where I was like, I had a focus. And so when I think about those that maybe didn't have that type of focus at a different focus, I was a peer, but I still wanted to be able to offer opportunities and alternatives of different ways to be able to do stuff with our lives. So it really started as a high school intern working at Parks and recreation and being able to again offer those different opportunities for young people.
- [05:27]
Aaron Parker
And my introduction to juvenile justice really happened as my first job out of grad school was actually working in the juvenile justice Assessment team, which is a team at Broadband Overseas now, spent a couple years doing assessments and mental health of assessments for youth in court. And then from that point, I moved on to a couple other positions within my organization. But then the position was created actually as a supervisor over that team. And I came back to the court at that time. And so that was my introduction and kind of circled back. But it was a great time to get back involved with juvenile justice as they were making the shift to being more therapeutic and looking at the whole kid and not just the charge. And it was just a perfect shift in that paradigm. And it was a great time to come back to the court.
- [06:14]
John Toole
I think those historical perspectives that you shared in your own lives have obviously remained impactful in the way you do your work. Certainly our privilege of working with you both, evidence that you bring those perspectives and that historical experience into the way you approach your job. Now, I appreciate that. I think you both would acknowledge that King County's experienced a tumultuous period of transition in the past few years, if we characterize it, from the departure of the director from a countywide initiative to eliminate the need for secure detention for youth, expanding into a pretty significant commitment to diversion outside the use of the youth justice system. At the same time, the building of the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children Family justice center, which replaced the outdated youth services center. And all occurring during a global pandemic. But despite this prolific change that you guys encountered, there have been many innovative and transformative achievements under your leadership. How have you managed and led the juvenile services through this period?
- [07:14]
Aaron Parker
Yes, there has been a huge period of change here. I think we've been dealing with, like you mentioned, not only building our building, which was pretty controversial, but also, like I mentioned earlier, the shift in moving away from this more punitive focus around the charge to what are the needs of the kid and how do we support that in the. In the family. As much progress as we have made, it has definitely been difficult. And not only just from like a change management view, but more of you're working in a system where people have had these positions and jobs for 15, 20, 30 years. Robert and I are not people in leadership roles that have come up through the ranks, but have come to the organization from community. That adds an additional layer to making those changes. And so we really have spent some intentional time working with staff to really get them to not only see the benefits of the shift and the changes and everything that's going on, but really starting to think about why and how these things are happening and being clear about some of the things that are like this. This stuff is happening to us. Some of these things we're, you know, choosing to shift in. Some of the things we are. Had already been in progress in. Some of the things were happening before even Robert and I got here. And I think we. Given some of the external things that were happening, we had to put the pedal to the metal, which then exacerbated kind of the. The feelings that people were having around kind of the shift in the work. But I think it's the fact that we are validating people's feelings around the shifts that are happening and the fact that we're asking people to just do their jobs differently and approach the work differently. Sometimes people, you know, have a difficulty trying to figure out is this us wanting to do these things because we know it's the best for kids and families, or is it because we're doing it some for some political reason. There's just so much that was happening. It's one of those things like you're managing as best you can, but it's just making sure that you're having these open conversations around the process that really helped us with the shift in the. In the movement that we're making here.
- [09:30]
Robert Gant
Yeah. And just to kind of add a little bit to what Aaron said there, I mean, I think the other big piece is we did all this through a pandemic, and so life was happening, and people didn't know what was going on with life. And there was certainly a human element that we had to make sure that we amplified and uplifted and tried to connect with our staff as people and understanding that while we're kind of going through this pandemic and there's all this uncertainty at the same time, you know, young people, although the numbers were lower, were still coming through our system. And so we still needed to react and try to make sure that we were able to. To lead our department in a way that we thought is going to best suit the young people. At this particular time, there were challenges around that because it's a mix of how each individual enters into the space of the workspace, and everybody kind of carries their own lives, oftentimes in the workspace. And so there was a part of, like, trying to honor that, but then also kind of stay to the work and make sure that we are shifting along the way.
- [10:28]
John Toole
As Aaron mentioned, you both faced, and certainly the department faced an uphill climb among probation staff and among some of your key stakeholders that are part of the juvenile justice system and many of those with your own staff and certainly your stakeholders, as Erin's mentioned, multiple years of experience in this environment of change. What keys would you identify that have allowed probation staff and some of your stakeholders to be positive partners in your efforts?
- [10:58]
Aaron Parker
I think what Robert and I and our director Paul were very aware of is that this is not something that we can create in a vacuum with just our leadership team. But it really took each of us owning one of the three pillars in the shift to our J track model and then also in our tactics, being able to identify committees that we could really lean in with to the work. And so, and I love the term Robert used earlier around co labor. It really was the fact that we were co laboring with our staff from the beginning and not developing this thing over here and then coming as leadership and saying, hey, this is what we're going to do and you have this, this many days to learn this piece and, and then we're going to implement. But it was more like, we're leaning into this work in this way. Here's how we want to move and we need you to sit with us at the table to develop what that looks like. I think that was a huge key to us being able to make the shift that we've made here in King County.
- [12:05]
John Toole
You also just mentioned your director, Paul Daniels. Because we had the privilege of working with you, we can attest to the fact that, Aaron, you, Robert and Paul worked very effectively as a team and relied on each other as team members through this change transition period and through all the social upheaval that was certainly a part of the pandemic and other forces that look to change the juvenile justice system in King County. If you could identify what personal or leadership skills you called upon, you thought most supported your efforts.
- [12:39]
Robert Gant
Yeah, I think patience is super important. I think you kind of come into a space and you know that our young people and their families are being impacted. You want to move fast. Like, you want to, like, do something, get something on the ground and have people kind of understand kind of the new vision and move it forward. But we're really at different periods of our change. We had to slow down, honestly, and that was challenging at times. But being able to be patient allowed us to be able to bring forth voices and different kind of ideas and just the understanding again of where our Staff was actually at. I think although, you know, our leadership team, we work very well together. You know, we have this idea we were really trying to move things forward. Our staff in different types of ways were saying, oh, hold on. And we really had to kind of pay attention to that. And I think that was something that we're at now, really allowed us to kind of get to where we're at. I think the other pieces that I always think about, just in terms of leadership in general, I think about being able to kind of give people what they need to do their work, so enabling them to be able to act. I think about inspiring a shared vision. If our vision is not clear and our staff don't understand what the vision is, people get stuck and they don't know where they fit in. I think about modeling the way if we are going to do certain types of changes, we have to build a model to our staff, stakeholders and community what that's about. And then encouraging the heart. We need to make sure that we are validating our staff and listening to them and kind of understanding where they're at. And then last but not least, I'll say challenge the process. We have to challenge our staff and all of us to do better in the work. And so when I think about leadership and how we kind of move forward, I think about those balance approaches.
- [14:19]
John Toole
Once again, we got the privilege of watching some of that at work and perhaps on occasion hearing some of your all's frustrations for the desire to go fast, but needing to go slow for it to be effective and sustainable. Part of our work with you was supported by the notion of implementing change management principles and implementation science. Were any of those things like building a proper infrastructure? Even our technical assistance guidance was part of that go slow to go fast approach. But were any of the principles or tenets of implementation science ones that you would highlight for our audience that were critical?
- [14:58]
Aaron Parker
Well, for us, I think it was very helpful to have the insight from you all around the TA in support of change management. I think a lot of times in leadership roles, you develop, you know, policies, procedures, new programs, and essentially you're just like, let's make it happen and people need to get on board. But I think in this shift, because we were making this huge paradigm shift around how we do the work, we had to go slow to go fast. And so you developed this process even before we had the term jtrac, which is our model of serving youth and families here in King county, before we even had that, before we even had any visuals, before you had even what it was, essentially the leadership team could talk about it and say what it was, but no one else could. And so we know we had to take a step back and say, okay, how do we get what we're saying in our head and what we know is right for working with kids and families on paper? And then how do you get what's on paper to translate into the work? And that really took some time with not only our internal partners and staff, but thinking about, you know, people from the community as well as our partners in terms of defense attorneys, prosecution, all of that. And so, you know, for it to work, we needed everybody to be on board to really understand that this, this work is going to look different. The leadership team, Robert, myself, our director, really had to make sure that the infrastructure was there so that our staff can be successful. That is our role as leaders, to make sure, not to just come up with these policies, procedures and programs, but to also on the other side, make sure that staff are able to be successful in doing that work. And I think that took time. That's why we're able to be where we're at today is because we were taking that pause and not just, you know, shoving this program down people's throat or, you know, and expecting partners and staff to get on board, but more like, here's the vision and it's getting clearer the more you sit at the table with us and talk through this with us.
- [17:18]
Robert Gant
Yeah. And to add on to that, I think the next piece of that was bringing in research, because I think many people say, okay, well what does the research say about some of these new things that we're trying to do, like visually around, like screening tools, for example? Just as one example, it's like, what is the research that says doing screening tools is going to be helpful for a young person? So we had to bring forth research that shows that in addition to that, building kind of measurements around how we're going to measure the work that we're actually doing out the gate, I think has been pretty important because part of that meant there was again some co laboring happening with our data analysts, us as managers, and also the specific programs within our department. And so they were able to say the work that we do, these are the things that we would really would like to measure because we think they're important, which actually I think helped with buy in because they had some agency over, like, okay, these are the things that we do that we know that we want to try to measure. And so I think the research piece and also putting those measurements along the way have been helpful in that as well.
- [18:19]
John Toole
Those are some great observations, great points. They're obvious that you guys lived it, experienced it, and I'm here to attest that you drove the positive change. I think I'd highlight what you said. There is what we constantly refer to as controlled inpatients because the patience is necessary, but it may not jive with our skill set, our personality for how we implement change and then even the self examination that you guys came to awareness with regard to training, teaching, coaching, mentoring differently as well to ensure that you are bringing the staff along as partners in the change. Some great qualities that we watched you demonstrate in a challenging environment and have led to a transition that's been very effective. And one of those elements of transition, kind of foundational to your work was the fact that King county designed and implemented the Juvenile Therapeutic Response and Accountability Court, known as jtrac to align numerous efforts under a single framework to continue to advance progress. Amplify to your point, Robert, the research backed therapeutic approaches that we know work. Can you guys provide the audience with the key aspects and practices that characterize jtrac?
- [19:35]
Aaron Parker
Jtrac, again, as you mentioned, is the Juvenile Therapeutic Response and Accountability Court. What we had to do is take a look at again as we built this new framework for how to serve youth and families is who are the youth and families coming to our court? Majority of the kids coming through our door are dealing with either drugs and alcohol or mental health or have needs that could benefit from this more holistic approach to the work as soon as they come to the door. The needs of the youth and the family drive what that support looks like and that continues to be monitored on a regular basis. And so that initiated that shift into jtrac. And then we have, through Robert's background and the work that he's done previously before coming to the court, he brought this strategic planning model to us that really put the meat on the bones around what JTRAC is. And we had three kind of main pillars to the work. And those three main pillars really were early screening and assessment, community centered and then positive youth justice. And using those three main pillars, we developed some other tactics and other focus areas that each of us kind of develop these committees and then really, really put additional, like I mentioned earlier, like meat on the bones around what is J Track. Through that we now have the model of J Track that we are implementing here.
- [21:01]
John Toole
With that backdrop. Robert, you want to add anything to the J Track discussion that kind of.
- [21:06]
Robert Gant
Drove how we got to the three pillars and how we got to the tactics that was going to help us meet that goal. And I think, you know, oftentimes well for us, I think we wanted to be very clear, like, why are we even doing all this? Like, what's the point of making all these shifts and all these changes? And it really was to center the young person and their family and that experience that they have and hopefully be able to mostly get the supports that they need outside of being in the criminal legal system.
- [21:35]
John Toole
And it was built on. When you talk about the three critical priorities that early screening and support, it is built on the structured professional judgment that incorporates these validated screening and assessment methodologies, these instruments that allow us to understand those complex set of needs that so many of the youth that you all are working with and their families are experiencing in King County. It's just to be congratulated how you have driven that against all the factors that you've been speaking to in this conversation. Robert Aaron, this approach has also sought to impact, in fact, eliminate disparities that some youth and families experience. Many youth of color. Can you describe for the audience your view on how it impacts youth of color?
- [22:19]
Robert Gant
I'll start off, then kick it to Aaron. I mean, I think one of the big things, and Aaron kind of alluded to this, is having standard, some standard practices as our young people enter into the legal system. We wanted to have some standards across the board. So no matter who you are, hopefully you're going to get an experience that's going to lead to success. And for that young person to be able to thrive was truly important. And I think the other piece I'll add, we really wanted to be intentional around what type of programs are we really trying to offer to young people? Do they really speak to them in our heads as old folk? As I'll say, is that sometimes we think we have all the ideas and think that that's going to be it. We're not really hearing from the young people like, what do they think they want? We're trying to do a better job of making sure that our programs that we offer are culturally responsive and speak to who they are as young people at this particular time.
- [23:07]
Aaron Parker
Definitely agree with what Robert shared. I think one big piece is, was really allowing our staff to not only be in the process with us in terms of developing what this looks like, but with those standards. You really looked at the system and how it's built and how the work was previously being done. You ran the whole gamut of what does it look like to actually try to support a kid and family again. It's the, oh, I've been doing this for 30 years and so I do it this way. Or I learned 10 years ago that this was a shortcut or how to do something maybe a little bit better. And so I'm doing it this way over here. And. And so that we really realized like our staff are doing great work, but it's the fact that everybody was doing it with a little tweak differently impacted people of color more than anyone else. When you think about diversion and what that work looks like, when you think about probation violations, when you think about, you know, who we're trying to get warrants on, you really could see that the system itself wasn't built for those kids to be successful. It was built in a way that our staff didn't really have the infrastructure and support to actually better serve those youth. And I think what we did was say, let's take a step back. We can't just allow this population to just continue to fall through the cracks, to continue to not be supported, to not be able to identify that the answer to how we best support kids and families has nothing to do with us in the system. It has everything to do with that kid, that family, that support in the community that we can help them develop. And really the huge part of the work that Robert is doing in terms of the community face and supports and programs is our connection with these youth and families is we hope to be very limited and one time only. And so the focus had to be to identify those needs, develop the safety net and supports in the community that the youth and family can tap into. And that's how we see success with the kids and families we work with. And it has nothing to do with the interventions that we can do, the evidence based programs we can refer to. It was more about the youth and the family sitting with you, developing those plans, being a part of the process, and developing that safety net with those community resources so that we can see better outcomes for the kids.
- [25:42]
John Toole
Thanks, Aaron. You both bring enormous experience from your community based history. Can you speak to how that background has continued to provide rewards for you in implementing the change and your leadership role in King County Juvenile Court services?
- [25:57]
Robert Gant
One thing I always chuckle about is that as someone that Aaron mentioned that we did not come up in the ranks of the work through the court system, we did come from community. So sometimes there's this idea like, oh, well, you don't know what we do. First of all, I've Done direct service in a lot of different spaces. And so I've done assessments with people, I connected people with programming and community. I've sat in court with young people as a case manager, as a therapist to support them through that process. So there's a lot of things that I think that are parallel from working community and also within the court. But I will also say, I think coming from a community in a nonprofit structure, I get the sense, at least from my experience, there's a lot more opportunities to be creative and innovative without a lot of barriers. Of course, you have your executive directors and you have your boards, but it's often really trying to set up programming to really truly meet the needs of those young people and families in community when it comes to bringing that knowledge and that vision to the court. That's what we've tried to do within the court. And not to say that the court hasn't always done this. I mean, the court has always tried to connect young people with programs in the community. But I think we really didn't want to be, we wanted to be super intentional that that has to be a big piece of what it is that we do, in addition to monitoring the order. So I think from a clinical lens that I've had has been helpful, particularly as we've kind of shifted to more of these screening tools and more assessments and just seeing the whole person and not just the charge that brought them through our door.
- [27:32]
John Toole
Great observations, Robert. Aaron.
- [27:35]
Aaron Parker
I think the, the skills and expertise that Robert and I bring coming from community is a double edged sword. It is the benefit and the challenge because we haven't come up through the ranks, that presents itself as a challenge. As you try to say, hey, this is how we should do these things. It's like, wait, hold on, who are you? And how do you know? But also we don't have the history, we don't have this working knowledge of how it's been done. What we have is we come with this mental health, social service approach to working with kids and families. And it really allowed us to one, get to our clear vision maybe a lot quicker than others, but also be able to say, like Robert has mentioned, this isn't anything new. You've been doing this work. It's just the fact that what we're saying is we're going to highlight these pieces that are focused around this social service, more holistic approach, moving away from anything to do with court and focus on what is your needs, what behavior got you here and how do I get you to think about things differently and react to things differently and change that behavior so that you don't come back here and being able to highlight those pieces. And I think that that has helped us in this transition is really being able to say you are doing all of these things. We're just giving it a new name and we're highlighting those elements of the work that you've been doing and saying that some of these other things need to look a little differently. But let's uplift the things that you've been doing that have been successful for kids and families and then package it in this way that says this is J track and not the old way.
- [29:22]
John Toole
I'm just going to quickly comment on the research about collaboration as one of the four core pillars of changing youth behavior to reduce the future risk is a research based concept. In practice, the whole notion of that kind of collaboration brings about new ideas. It invites new perspectives to improve the work that you're doing. The implementation science or change management invites the co creation among participants as teams so that you value multiple perspectives. What you guys brought were multiple perspectives. I think simplifying it, our exposure to your all's work and what you brought clearly brought that perspective into that kind of thinking and I think gets reflected in the whole JTRAC introduction and implementation in King County. Those are the things that are most important to that process. You're also brought into this equation a significant commitment to what we'll call positive youth development, which features the understanding that if we provide skills, positive opportunities to grow to exercise that cognitive judgment, then we'll put those youth in a better place to make their own decisions way beyond when we're impacting with them. Could either or both of you comment on the whole commitment that you have to that positive youth development aspect of your work?
- [30:43]
Aaron Parker
We came across some positive youth justice stuff a number of years ago through your connection. We were able to make a more solid connection with someone that had a really good background in positive youth justice. And so we were able to bring that external person in to do some training with our staff. But really it's the shift. The shift from my job is really focused on being someone that goes and reports to the court, gets a court order, makes those disposition recommendations and holds a kid accountable to what are those conditions of release. And the reality was that is a piece of your job. That is not your job. Your job actually is agent of change and we need to for you to really think about. My job is to build these skills and help this youth and family build skills so they can be successful when they're not connected to me.
- [31:36]
Robert Gant
And just to build upon what Aaron mentioned, I think as our staff focused into that positive youth development, growth focused case management, you're bringing those elements into the courtroom as well so that you can help the judge understand there is a bigger picture here. And these are the other ways in which we can also support that young person. And some specific examples from the positive justice part is we have implemented incentive based supervision and also incentive based through our diversion programs as well, which was a big shift for us in King County. I think initially we were getting things like, are these just bribes for kids? It's like, well, no, we are incentivizing young people for the great work and the great changes that they are making for their lives. The other big piece is coming out of that isolated way to work with the young person and their family. And so we've created care team models as well, where we have the juvenile probation counselor also convening with other stakeholders within our department. So that could be a social worker, that could be somebody from our resource center, someone from our clinical team, and they come together monthly to staff certain young people. And I think that lends itself to that positive youth justice and positive youth development lens.
- [32:47]
John Toole
And you certainly both embrace the notion that the proper balance of incentives and sanctions brings about that change in behavior that will give them that opportunity in the future. And we certainly often say so that they could live as if they were our own children and have that same opportunity that we would want as if they were our own. So I just reinforce that whole notion of the incentivized change in behavior in proper balance brings about those opportunities for each individual youth that you work with. As we close out, I just want to ask, what's the journey ahead? What's immediately in front of you in your challenge to continue improving youth justice in King County?
- [33:29]
Aaron Parker
What is immediate for us is the ongoing discussion around the work. I think you, you spend a lot of time on the front end in terms of developing what the model looks like, developing the vision, the goal, the strategies, all that. Then you deal with implementation in terms of getting it off the ground. And then once it's off the ground, you have to be open to having discussions around what that work continues to look like and how we are allowing the model to really be nimble to staff community, the youth and families we're working with. And so we're currently in the process now. You know, as we were standing up this new model, we were dealing with a reduction in force at the Same time. And so you're building a certain, I would say, infrastructure in terms of like staff and capacity. Then here we are today with 15 less staff members with the expectation that that model still exists and that we're still going to implement that same model that was developed with 15 other people in the court. And so it takes time, which can be difficult, not only for us as leaders, but for staff to really be like, I'm having these feels around the work changing, but I'm also having feels around my capacity to do this work connected to your expectations of the new model. Of course, in leadership roles, sometimes it's like, well actually you need to sit in that uncomfortableness for a little bit so we can have really an informed conversation around what's working, what's not working, what's missing. And that's a challenge for a while. It won't be this month, next month, this year, but it'll, it'll take a while for us to move away from that. And I think that has to be our focus now, is to just continue to really engage and leaning into continuous improvement. Because this model we created two, two years ago can't be the same model that we're delivering a year from now or two years from now.
- [35:29]
Robert Gant
And just to add and build upon that, I think what Aaron is talking about allows us to be able to go back to those that our, our funders to say, hey, this is our model, this is how we are working. We have measurements that are put in place, we have all these different things that kind of tell our story as opposed to just saying, oh, we do great work. Why are they tripping with us? It's like, well, no, we need to make sure that we can not only do great work, but be able to share that with folks that actually have the power to continue to fund the work that we're doing. And I think the other big piece, and this is just something that from day one from me being in the court, is continuing to talk with stakeholders at the state level and at the county level around funding structure models. Because as we've shifted the work, and not just King County, I think across the state, we have to be mindful that each county and how we're serving young people looks a little bit different. And sometimes we're pinned to these rigid funding models that honestly are outdated. And so trying to figure out ways that we can co labor with the state around, can we think about other ways that maybe we get funding and maybe we can even use results based accountability model, figure out what measures Specifically work for our particular counties and then drive funding in that way, because I think that be a better connection to the work in our specific geographic areas across the state.
- [36:48]
John Toole
Those are outstanding observations. I think as I listen to you, we could use you in so many other jurisdictions to articulate this and this understanding. In our parlance, we add the terms continuous quality improvement for the managed oversight of the fidelity to the practices and the procedures. We add the notion of quality assurance, which is both measured qualitatively and quantitatively. You guys are speaking to the data, making a case for whether or not we stay with the model as we implement it or we need to make adjustments. So the whole CQI QA acronyms is what you were speaking to and your awareness of how critically important that is. But more than that even was the fact that it is ongoing. It's not done after one year, it's not done after two years. We have to constantly be willing to re examine how we're practicing, whether or not it's true to what we instituted and whether or not it's producing the results that we desire, and then be willing among our stakeholders to call out where we need to make adjustments in that collaborative environment. That's what you guys spoke to. Your passion, your commitment, your awareness and understanding of that, I think bodes well for the long term success in King County. We've got to wrap it up. But if you could change one thing about youth justice, what would that be?
- [38:06]
Robert Gant
ROBERT I think it would really be around how the funding models flow because that has a lot of impact on how we're able to actually do the work. And I think the other piece is, even though King county has lower numbers relatively for the population and size that we have, we still have disproportionality regardless. And I think it's critically important that we are laser focused on reducing that disproportionality.
- [38:32]
Aaron Parker
AARON I think for me, the biggest thing that I would change is the adversarial relationship that we have with our partners in the court process. When you think of defense, when you think of the prosecutor, our JPCs in the court, the judge, the police that first interact with the youth and families, juvenile justice is definitely way ahead of the adult system because we do have this kind of vision of working together to try to be successful for the kid and family. But the reality is, through building this JTRAC model, you realize people have their agendas and it's very clear that we don't align on those agendas. But the reality is the only person that loses and our agenda is not aligning. Is the kid in the family? Is the community? Is that next person that could be potentially harmed because you wanted to stay so laser focused on your agenda instead of us coming together and actually trying to figure out what might be best for supporting kids and families in the community. And I think what we're doing in JTRAC is kind of the steps towards that and getting to that reality of we're here for what's best for the kid. Yes, the defense attorney is going to get in there and do what they do. Yes, the prosecutor is going to do what they do. But how do we own our pieces of harm to youth and families and understand the fact that the better we work together, the more successful these kids and families will be?
- [40:09]
John Toole
Robert Gant Aaron Parker, you and your director Paul Daniels are an enormous force in leading change in the Juvenile Court services and in the community in King County. We appreciate the privilege of talking with you. I have the utmost respect for what you have spirited and led and driven in your work, and I hope that our audience benefits from the perspectives, thoughts and guidance that you've provided in this conversation today. Thank you.
- [40:36]
Jody Martin
Thank you for listening. Today we are excited to announce the release of our new Probation and Youth Justice System Review Guidebook developed for probation departments, courts and youth justice systems seeking to improve outcomes for the young people they serve, thereby achieving our shared goals for reducing risk for future delinquent behavior, holding youth accountable, supporting sustainable, positive behavior change, and improving community safety. This new resource builds upon our seminal System Review framework used in partnership with 32 state and local jurisdictions throughout the country to achieve substantial improvements in youth outcomes and system performance. The System Review Guidebook aligns with the most up to date and relevant research on adolescent development, risk needs, responsivity approaches, comprehensive behavioral health screening and assessment, graduated system responses, family engagement, implementation and change management, science and data driven management and reporting. The Guidebook is available now on our website, rfknrcjj.org as always, we would love to know what you think about the podcast. To share your ideas and input, please email us at rfknrcjjfkcommunity.org and to stay connected, follow us on Twitter FKYouthjustice and on our LinkedIn page at RFK National Resource center for Juvenile Justice.