Comprehensive Responses to Youth at Risk: Interim Findings From the SafeFutures Initiative: Summary

• NCJ Number: 183841
• Author(s): Elaine Morley; Shelli B. Rossman; Mary Kopczynski; Janeen Buck; Caterina Gouvis
• Date Published: November 2000
• Length: 91 pages
• Grant Number(s): 95-JN-FX-K012
• Agencies: OJJDP
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description

Annotation

This report describes the lessons learned over the first 3 years of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) SafeFutures initiative, which focuses on preventing and controlling juvenile delinquency and violence based on research on risk and protective factors and experience with promising strategies.

Abstract

The initiative focuses on a continuum of care that responds to the needs of youth at critical stages of development. It embodies the principles of OJJDP’s Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. The pilot sites for the implementation of the initiative were Boston, Seattle, St. Louis, Contra Costa County (Calif.), and Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana. The services that each site provided varied considerably. The nine components that constitute SafeFutures are: (1) after-school programs; (2) juvenile mentoring programs; (3) family strengthening and support services; (4) mental health services for at-risk and adjudicated youth; (5) juvenile delinquency prevention programs, (6) comprehensive communitywide approaches to gang-free schools and communities; (7) community-based day treatment programs; (8) continuum-of-care services for at-risk and delinquent females; and (9) programs for serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders. The lessons learned related to three primary audiences: (1) those responsible for creating or managing funded demonstration projects, (2) those involved in community-based collaboratives, and (3) those responsible for providing services. Charts and 115 references