If there's one thing in common for youth in a detention setting, it is that they must have instructional, academic programming. But the similarities stop there - leaving juvenile justice educators without a cohesive model to follow.

States are all over the map when it comes to who is responsible for providing the education of detained youth, who pays for the education of this population and who makes decisions for the system. That makes it more difficult for juvenile education issues to have a national platform and maybe also for the youth to garner any attention at all.

"The population is kind of a hidden population. Once you take them out of the mainstream they are not as visible. It's a relief on the public schools and the families that they are not there any more. These kids are tough; they can wear a family out. Once they get behind a door, there's a cloak problem. It might not lend to best practices," said Farryll Brown, Principal of the State Agency Children's Program, Jefferson County, Ky., Public Schools.

Brown is in charge of educating youth at 13 residential settings in the county ranging from those who are non-delinquent to those sentenced to detention at juvenile justice centers.

She counts herself lucky, in a sense, because the education program in Jefferson County juvenile facilities is all part of one public school program and, therefore, has a consistency that is familiar to educators and the youth.

"In Kentucky one of the regulations, or rules, is we have to provide the same, common instructional experience," said Brown.

This means that teachers are more plentiful, the education program is fluid and that the students are able to continue to move forward with their education, even during detention.

But the idea of coining best practices in juvenile education is developing slowly.

Because juvenile justice systems differ from state to state in their approaches to education, funding can be inconsistent and unequal, testing and evaluation is changeable and the outcomes of these youth may vary as well.

According to Bruce Wolford, Director of the Training Resource Center at Eastern Kentucky University, who has authored several studies on juvenile justice education, there are several inconsistencies that can develop. Funding is a big one.

"School districts can provide education or the [systems] can contract out. There's no uniformity. In one state, education may be funded one way and in a private agency, funded a different way," he said.

That is what Wolford found in a study a few years ago of 20 states and their juvenile justice education programs, Juvenile Justice Education: Who is Educating the Youth?

There was considerable diversity among them including the administration of delivery of educational services, the responsibility for this education and their funding sources.

"The majority of these systems provide year-round education, but on what basis are they doing that? A 12-month budget or a nine-month budget," Wolford said.

One area where Wolford believes these systems should be consistent, regardless of how they are set up, is in providing the opportunity for all the different systems that touch the lives of these offenders to work together.

Collaboration Needed

According to Wolford, there are three systems that these youth tend to move between, the juvenile justice system, the mental health system and the child welfare system.

"It's seldom that a kid in isolation commits a crime," he said.

In Kentucky, Wolford said, these three systems fall under one category for state funding, which allows for a comprehensive approach to the care of these youth.

"It applies whether they are in residential or day treatment. In many states those operate independently, but for Kentucky they are the same," he said.

Not only is funding consistent under this model, but it also makes providing education to juveniles a little easier and more complete, according to Brown.

With a familiar curriculum and a consistent mandate as the foundation, education for juveniles can also become open to some specialized programming as well.

This is why the faith community is also involved in the care and treatment of this population in Kentucky.

The faith-based community brings volunteers into the classroom in juvenile and detention centers to reach out to the youth there and provide them even more services in the community.

"The combined missions of making things better for kids makes [the partnership an easy one]," said Brown. "We are collaborating all the time. All of our teaching staff has to learn grassroots collaboration. They have to learn to work with a therapeutic partner."

Wolford agrees that collaboration with community organizations and other support systems is crucial to the success of this population after they are released.

"I don't think it is realistic or that [these kids] going back to a 2,000-student high school [in the community] is even reasonable. [We need] transition or re-entry plans for these kids. They need to be in transitional ed to help them complete their education," he said.

That continuity is being put into practice in the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice after several years of federal oversight.

Georgia's Changes

Several years ago, the federal government put Georgia's juvenile justice system under a consent decree to raise the quality of services provided to juveniles, including the educational program. But in the last six months, the educational portion of that order has been released from oversight as the department took a new approach to teaching this population.

According to Tom O'Rourke, Associate Superintendent for Educational Services for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, educators and administrators wanted to first understand what the needs of these youth were, and then fit the educational program to those needs.

"We found that between 40 and 45 percent are in need of special education programs. They are in disordered behavior programs; they are mildly or moderately medically handicapped. So with that as the background, we try every way possible to develop programming and treatment programming to meet those needs," said O'Rourke. "Then we look at education."

Education at the state's 22 detention centers for youth fall under the juvenile justice agency. But even so, the DJJ has created a consistent curriculum of instruction that will ensure that when these youth are under the agency's care, they do not fall further behind academically.

"We have a consistent curriculum. In the detention centers they have the same text books and same lesson plans and activity sheets [as the public schools]. All of their work programs and work sheets are on an intranet system," he said.

Each of the detention centers is tied to an information database, via an intranet, that shows the educators where each youth is in terms of their educational program in the public schools, what classes they have taken and how they have performed. With this information, the educators in the juvenile justice system can ensure that these students stay in a consistent track and continue to learn and master a subject.

As the subjects are completed, the youth get credit for the work they have done and they can take that with them back to the public schools.

"If you are only with us for 10 days, we'd withdraw you and you go back to the high school with a record to show you completed 10 days worth of work. It's so you don't fall behind. That's very important to us; they are behind anyway [so] if it doesn't count, they are even further behind," O'Rourke said.

Within 24 hours, clerks at each of the detention centers or youth development campuses, contact the youths' home schools to request their education records. That information is sent directly to the centers and impacts the student directly.

"We are able to pull down the lesson for each of them. It's almost like the one-room school house. The teacher is the mentor and a coach to move them forward," O'Rourke said.

The educational program remains similar whether a youth is in the system for five months or five years. The only change that occurs, said O'Rourke, is that those in longer-term facilities also have vocational classes that are provided through local technical colleges.

Even this is made to have continuity in the community.

If the youth enroll in one of these technical or vocational courses and complete it, they can take that credit to the local technical college n their area and the credit will count for them. Even if they don't complete a course, their progress is mapped so that they can have credit for what they did complete.

"Nothing is lost. We are providing more tools for kids to put in their tool box," he said.

"When I came in, we were consistently inconsistent. We had limited tools and resources to work with. My goal was that what we were doing would become consistent," he said.

This new level of consistency has also had other positive outcomes: the teachers find themselves more satisfied with their jobs because they can move the youth forward in an educational program and they see more success.

A recent evaluation of the system by Georgia State University students showed less teacher turnover and a higher teacher satisfaction level - all of which O'Rourke attributes to the new approach to education in the juvenile justice system.

Another ancillary outcome of this educational program is a rise in standardized test scores.

O'Rourke said that the department's research of outcomes, so far, has shown that the longer the youth are in the system, the higher their test scores are.

This is good news not only for Georgia, but for other juvenile educators who have a unique opportunity to provide academic support and a learning environment for a cohort of kids who might otherwise be distracted and unmotivated to attend school

On a smaller scale, individuals and smaller volunteer programs are also reaching out to kids in detention one at a time.

Opening Learning Doors

In Portland, Maine, The Salvation Army has created a unique program to open delinquent and detained youth up to the idea of learning - but through a medium they know and understand - rap and popular music.

Kevin Bickford, Director of the Leg-Up Program, began working with youth at the Long Creek Youth Development Center more than three years ago. The Leg-Up Program teaches them about poetry through the lyrics of popular music and also educates them about life skills they will need.

"Most kids have been told you made bad decisions, bad choices [and] you're probably going to be in jail for most of your life. We thought we'd look at some positives. Our philosophy is that if they can read poetry, they can read anything," said Bickford.

His approach involves dissecting the lyrics, discussing them with the groups of youth and sparking their interest in learning.

Two days a week, Bickford conducts the poetry and music class with the youth at the center. The music they consider includes songs performed by rap artists Tupac, Nelly and Ja Rule.

"We take today's music and we analyze it. What does it really mean? What does Nelly mean? What does Ja Rule mean? We try to get them to look at lyrics and content and we show them how it all mixes in today's world," said Bickford.

With the girls unit, for example, Bickford recently conducted a class that analyzed roles in relationships through the lyrics of a popular song.

The Ja Rule lyric, (expletives removed) "Every thug needs a lady. Every thug needs a down-axx bxtch." Was part of the analysis.

"I asked the girls, which one are you?" said Bickford and started the conversation with the group there.

He said the key to getting the youth to open up to learning is by communicating with them in terms they understand. Music is one of those mediums.

The  life skills class he teaches to young men at the center also works well because they first learn to communicate with each other in a way the youth can relate.

"That's the key to anything, especially with young people. If they don't like you, they aren't going to listen to anything you say," he said.

In the life skills class, Bickford promotes communication without anger, discusses how they should handle conflict and provides tips to remember when communicating with others.

"A strong part of the program is mentoring," Bickford said.

Another important piece to the program is the collaboration with other agencies to keep a consistent and positive contact with the youth - even after they have left the center

Bickford keeps in close contact with the state's department of human services,  department of corrections and group homes - all agencies that might have future contact with these youth.

He also travels to see these kids in group homes and interfaces with probation officers and clinicians to support the work they do as well.

"I'll call the clinician and see what they need me to work on with them," he added. And, it's not unusual for the kids to contact Bickford even two years after they were detained at the center.

The way Bickford looks at it, if he can make a difference for these kids, he will keep the connection going. And he has some evidence of this. From the informal research he has done, the recidivism estimates for kids in his program hover around 20 percent -- not a bad number.

Other educators and experts also say that the period of time when youth are incarcerated or detained is the optimum time to try to make a difference in their lives and worth the extra effort.

"If you think about it from an equity point of view, these are the kids we should be spending the most money on. There's a high percentage of learning disabilities. And now we are in a position in which this might be their last formal chance as a youth to get an education," said Wolford.

Resources:

Dr. Bruce Wolford, Training Resource Center, Eastern Kentucky University
www.trc.eku.edu

Juvenile Justice Education: Who is Educating the Youth?
http://www.edjj.org/Publications/educating_youth.pdf

Dr. Tom O'Rourke, Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice,
404-508-6592 or email tomorourke@djj.state.ga.us

Kevin Bickford, Leg-Up Program, The Salvation Army, Portland, Maine (207) 774-6304 xt 263