Last Thursday, a crowd gathered at Eastern Kentucky University's Richmond campus to dedicate a new juvenile justice training center and applaud those individuals who had just completed the seven week juvenile justice training academy that was held there.  This class of around 30 trainees was the first to attend the academy at the new facility; these people are now heading out into the juvenile justice field to work with troubled youth.

The new center is intended to provide up-to-date training for newly hired state Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) employees who are entering the juvenile justice field.

"Training is the single most important element of a juvenile justice professional's growth, development, understanding and sensitivity to the issues that they are faced with," said Earl Dunlap, Executive Director of the National Juvenile Detention Association and Chief Executive Officer of the National Partnership for Juvenile Services. 

According to Dunlap, training is necessary for people working in the juvenile justice field because of its dynamic nature.

"Juvenile justice professionals are required to respond to and meet the needs of some of our country's most at-risk children, youth and families," Dunlap said.  "They must be prepared to respond to the always changing trends and needs [of] the juvenile justice system and the client."

The center, which has been open for about a month, is designed to do just that: keep new and existing DJJ staff members informed and trained on developing issues in juvenile justice. 

"We're trying to provide them with all the cutting edge knowledge in the field," said Allen Ault, Dean of the College of Justice and Safety at EKU.  "The main thing [the center] does is it prepares them and gives them a lot of different options [for] certain situations dealing with youth."

DJJ's Juvenile Justice Training Academy has been held at EKU since the 1980s and, because of space constraints in its original campus location in the College of Justice and Safety, the university spent six months renovating another building to house the new training center.

Newly appointed state Juvenile Justice Commissioner Bridget Skaggs Brown is thrilled to have the additional space dedicated to her agency's training academy.

"I didn't see the previous classroom space that they had to use, but I know that they were kind of juggled [around]," Brown said.  "To actually have a classroom space that they can call their own is great."

According to Brown, the new training center is equipped with videoconferencing technology so the instructors and students can link to remote sites throughout the state.  This, she said, will benefit the DJJ financially.

"It's going to save taxpayer dollars because we can have the training actually conducted in Richmond, but bring in people from eastern Kentucky or western Kentucky [via videoconferencing]," Brown said.  "It's going to be a great opportunity for us to improve our training [and to] give additional training to people who need it."

EKU and the DJJ will also look to expand the center's distance learning capabilities in the future so that people can receive training in the juvenile justice arena without ever having to step foot on campus, Ault said. 

According to Dunlap, this emphasis on training for all juvenile justice professionals is something that has not always existed in the criminal justice field.

"There was a time, and I have been in this business for 35 years, where training received no attention at the federal or state level," Dunlap said.  "[And] in those instances where it did, it [was the] first to be cut at budget negotiations."

But because of litigation in this area and assistance from federal agencies like the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), training has emerged as a necessary element of preparing people to work with juveniles in the criminal justice system, Dunlap said.

"Leaders in the juvenile justice system are learning that the one area that leaves them most vulnerable is inadequate training," he said.

With the training being provided at the new center at EKU, juvenile justice professionals like Dunlap and Ault hope that practitioners who graduate from the DJJ's Juvenile Justice Training Academy will succeed in making a difference in the lives of the juvenile offenders they will be working with.

"They are the people who deal directly with the youthful offenders and we hope [they] make a positive impact and, hopefully, change their lives," Ault said.  "We're trying to give them the tools to do that."