Meeting Information

2.

(ACTION) Review and possible approval of minutes of August 30, 2007 meeting.

Comm Woodson made a grammatical correction in item #7. Comm Beijen corrected language in #8.  with these amendments, the minutes were approved.

(public comments)

There were none.

3.

Public comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Program Committee of the Juvenile Probation Commission

There were none.

4.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION)Report by Committee Chair.

Comm Woodson briefly reviewed discussions from the JDAI Steering Committee meetings.  She felt that once the JH population crisis had been reduced, and the Director of MOCJ has left, the committee seems to have lost some direction.  There was dialog about the lack of consistency in relationships between the JPD/POs and CBOs in attempting to get probationers into community services. When they get more momentum going there probably will be more to report.

The other item she mentioned was having looked at the pile of self assessments from the CBOs and is not sure she can abstract the information necessary to know if services are reaching their targeted goals and outcomes, and knows that at some point this analysis and synthesis of data needs to be done to move forward.  This leads into the next agenda item.

 (public comments)

There were none.

5.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION)  Analysis/report on progress/problems of contracted CBO services (progress in using YASI), plans for evaluations in preparation for the next FY contracts.)

Comm. Woodson commented that in the JDAI meetings there have been questions raised about how to determine if services are effective, and that she had recently learned that most of the CBO contracts for the Dept have not been approved, so she is concerned. Is there some policy/protocol that the Commission can put in place to resolve these problems?

Comm Beijen asked if these are personnel/management problems or problems on a policy level?

Comm Woodson said policy level.  She spoke of the issue of having individualized case plans rather than “cookie cutter” programs for everyone. Are these needs understood so that cultural/linguistic competent approaches can be applied.  These questions reflect the need to have solid evaluations of services/programs so that we know what does work.

She also mentioned that Comm Rojas had asked for some structured responses by CBOs when they present, so that we would have a more concrete idea of progress and outcomes.

Comm Beijen questioned whether there is too much information to be useful.

Comm Rojas asked what the evaluation process is? The Chief said that the underlying cause of the problems we have now is the lack of leadership in the Community Programs division.  The Dept hasn’t had the staff to do program evaluations, and is now still examining candidates for positions in that division.

He said that the organizational development “initiative” the Dept will be conducting will address the “historic disconnect” between CBO perceptions of PO’s activities, and vice versa.

He said that citywide there are issues with oversight of CBO contracts.  They (the Dept) would like to work out some standardized evaluations and development of standardized contracts.

As to the question of what is the evaluation process now? The Dept has no money to reserve for evaluations.  MOCJ set aside some funds to evaluate their contracts (eg. evening reporting cts).  The Chief said that he recognizes that CBOs don’t have the staff to attend to a lot of the administrative functions that the contracts require.  Asked what will be done with the CBO self assessments, the Chief said maybe this could be kept on the agenda for the next meeting to be reported on.

Asked about the organizational development piece, the Chief said that Mark Morris associates is contracted to do this, and they may report at the next meeting what is to be done.

The Chief asked what information was requested regarding YASI.  Comm Woodson said that she understood that YASI was supposed to be used to better determine appropriate matching of services to youth needs.

The Chief summarized that staff have been trained and there is an implementation workgroup that developed policies and procedures for implementing the YASI instrument. They have already undertaken a modification of the YASI procedure to allow completion before disposition rather than within 48 hrs. G. Bieringer added that in the implementation group there are staff from all levels; line level to administrative, and this has allowed the perspective of all.  And the procedure is integrated into the normal operations and practices.  The YASI will be used to do case planning.  Both case level data and system level data will be obtainable to see how things are working. This is a web-based applications, and kinks are still being worked out. If things go on schedule, preliminary data should be available by the fall. 

(public comments)

G. Bloom commented that at the last JDAI meeting the climate was more positive and collaborative than in the past where finger pointing was more the prevailing practice.

6.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Report out by CARECEN and Instituto Familiar de la Raza on their current contracted program services.

Roberto Gonzalez, CARECEN, gave a very thorough review of their contract operations. Some highlights: clients served to date: 65 on case management. Of that, 31 are employed and have moved to just the treatment portion of the service.  20 have received education support. They collaborate with other providers to serve their clients (eg. Youth Empowerment), making their clients aware of the “green movement” and environmental issues that impact them. They do workforce development/training through Arriba Juntos, housing support through ILFP.  They continue referring mental health issues to IFR. Currently they are helping 13 clients with immigration issues. They are working with JPD on an educational video about entry into the juvenile justice system. On their current caseload, 20 are females, 12 are getting full case management services. 8 are doing treatment only.  Their 2^nd chance tattoo removal program is outreaching to the Tenderloin, SOMA, Western Addition and Bayview Hunters Point.  They have served 180 clients in this program to date.

The Chief asked how they make reports of their progress to the courts?  Case managers attend court and provide full written/oral reports to the courts, attorneys, JPD.

Jesus Yanez, IFR, gave an overall review of their services.   The IHBS program not only works with the youth, but includes family therapy where parents are involved in the plan of sevices. They will do whatever is necessary to get the youth back on track, working with other CBOs to bring a larger menu of services to their youth, outside of what they are contracted to do.  They do not measure success by the total compliance to court orders.  They have other benchmarks, like changing self awareness of where the youth’s life is heading.  The organization provides advocacy and referral services to other organizations, eg for lifeskills workshops.  The organization also collaborates with the JPD and POs in serving the youth, so that their efforts are coordinated and not conflicting.

The Chief re iterated that CBOs’ bring the added value of other services outside of their contracted work.

Comm Rojas asked how many of his (CARECEN) clients come from probation.  75-80%. The other portion come from neighborhood outreach efforts.  For IFR, 100% of their clients are from probation. They have a family support contract where they work with CARC, and these come from probation also. Comm Woodson asked about the status of their campaign for transient youth services.  CARECEN is working with the Dept to come up with a workplan to address this population.

Comm Rojas asked if they had any documentation/data regarding the impact of the gang injunction in the City.  They referred to the study by the Justice Research Institute, but had no more recent data on specific impacts in the City.  They said they have had dialogs with people who have first hand experience with this, and they are encouraging them to come to the next full commission meeting to give statements.

Comm Rojas referred to a list of “most at risk” youth in the City, that was distributed at a MYEEP meeting.  She asked to get a copy.  The Chief said he was aware of such a list but he understood it to be not intended for law enforcement use, but as something to elicit services from those contractors to those on the list.  Comm Beijen said he was given a copy of this list and he gave it to Allen Nance.  He didn’t think there was anything to this list connected to law enforcement.

(public comments)

There were none.

7.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION)Any updates on services to transient/undocumented/unaccompanied youth.

Possible recommended actions of support by the Commission.

Roberto Gonzalez commented that services and support to this population were inadequate.  Lack of cultural/linguistically competent staff to deal with them. He proposed creating a dedicated staff position to do the background case development of these youth so that appropriate services can be decided upon.  Having a good assessment would help establish 241.1 status eligibility so they could access services as wards of the court.

Quest: what charges are these youth usually connected with.  Drugs/distribution/sale.

Quest: what about the Mayan population that was mentioned at the last meeting?  They are working with other agencies in a collaborative to try and and address the needs of this group. 

J. Yanez said there is the need for a 30-60-90 day residential placement for many of these youth so allow for their getting some stability while they take care of many of those issues in their lives.  He encouraged the commission to take a position supporting the creation of a long-term residential facility.

The Chief said that the expectation of being responsible for these youth should not be totally on the shoulders of the probation dept. it should be a citywide effort by many other human services depts.

He suggested the commission held hearings along with other depts. to fully inspect this issue.

He mentioned that they had just heard (today) of a program that heralds from LA, and will be looking more closely at what they are doing in regards to housing and allied services.

J. Yanez also agreed with the Chief’s comment that mental health services are deficient for this population.

Comm Woodson requested that this be followed up on at the next meeting.

The Chief suggested possibly raising the issue with the Bd of Supervisors’ public safety committee, and with the other city agencies that are involved in aspects of the problems this population has (employment, health, housing, social services. etc.)  If the Commission brought any resolution to the Dept to address the issue, it would be far more involved than just what the Dept’s abilities could affect.

Comm Beijen suggested a letter to the Mayor and Bd of Supervisors referring to this issue/problem and suggesting a citywide response to it.

Comm Woodson asked the Chief to construct some bullet points for this letter, synthesizing the discussion held here.

Comm Beijen also suggested that each committee member bring back what they think are the relevant points.  This will be an action for the next meeting.

(public comments)

there were none.

8.

(DISCUSSION) Public comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Program Committee of the Juvenile Probation Commission
There were none.

9.

(ACTION) Announcements, future agenda items.  Adjournment

Comm Woodson repeated: have a representative from the Mark Morris firm to report on the organizational development plan.  Recommendation on a letter that reflects the commission’s stance on the issue of undocumented/transient youth.

It was decided that the committee had taken the discussion regarding the gang injunction as far as they could, and see no need to re visit it in future meetings.

there being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:15pm.