Maryland Department of Juvenile Services: Expansion of EvidenceBased Services

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Maryland Department of Juvenile Services
Expansion of Evidence-Based Services

• Arleen Rogan, Ph.D.
• Director, Behavioral Health Services
• Maryland Department of Juvenile Services
• March 31, 2008

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DJS Goals

• Keeping Marylands Children in Maryland
• Improving Conditions of Confinement at all DJS
  Facilities
• Better Outcomes for Children and Families by
  Becoming a Results-Driven Agency
• Improve Public Safety by Reducing Juvenile
  Homicides and Non-Fatal Shootings of
  DJS-supervised Youth.

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Objectives of Expansion of EBS

• Reduce out-of-home and out-of-state placements
• Achieve the best outcomes for youth, their
  families and their communities

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Target Population

• Youth who have been identified by the Court to be
  at risk of out-of-home placement
• Youth who are in pending placement status in a
  detention facility or the community
• Youth in a detention facility who are likely to
  be identified as in need of out-of-home placement
• Youth currently in out-of-home, especially
  out-of-state, placements

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Services Currently in Place

• Functional Family Therapy
• Family-based prevention and intervention program
• Treat a range of high-risk youth and their
  families
• Has been shown to be effective as an alternative
  to incarceration and/or reentry for youth
  returning to the community following release from
  a high-security, severely restrictive
  institutional setting.
• Data from numerous studies suggest that when
  applied as intended, reduces recidivism and/or
  the onset of offending between 25 and 60 percent
  more effectively than other programs

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Services Currently in Place

• Multi-systemic Therapy
• Home-based model to deliver services.
• Trials with violent and chronic juvenile
  offenders have demonstrated
• reduced long-term rates of criminal offending in
  serious juvenile offenders,
• decreased recidivism and rearrests,
• reduced rates of out-of-home placements for
  serious juvenile offenders,
• extensive improvements in family functioning,
• decreased behavior and mental health problems for
  serious juvenile offenders,
• favorable outcomes at cost savings in comparison
  with usual mental health and juvenile justice
  services.

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Multi-dimensional Treatment Foster Care

• Developed as an alternative to institutional,
  residential, and group care placements for boys
  with severe and chronic criminal behavior,
  children and adolescents with severe emotional
  and behavioral disorders, girls referred from
  juvenile justice for severe delinquency, and with
  youth in regular state-supported foster care.
• Studies have found that MTFC can
• prevent escalation of delinquency and other
  problem behaviors such as youth violence and that
  placement in MTFC
• more economical and more effective than placement
  in group care at decreasing offense and
  incarceration rates in follow-up.
• Treatment Components
• close supervision,
• fair and consistent limit setting,
• decreased association with delinquent peers,
• positive adult-youth relationship

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MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF JUVENILE
SERVICES STATEWIDE EBS DAILY UTILIZATION FFT
Functional Family Therapy MST
Multi-systemic Therapy MTFC
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care March 28,
2008
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Statewide Vacancies FFT 40 MST 2
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Mechanisms for Expanding EBS

• Compacts
• Baltimore County MST
• Contracting Services
• Anne Arundel County FFT
• Prince Georges County FFT
• Blue Sky Project

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American Association for Evidence Based Practice

• Promotes the use of evidence based interventions
  (such as functional family therapy and
  multi-systemic family therapy),
• Serves as a resource to policy makers who are
  funding evidenced-based programs,
• Educates legislators, foundations and other
  policy makers about the benefits that evidence
  based programs offer, and
• Promotes fidelity to high quality implementation
  of evidence based  interventions.
• DJS is the first state agency to join AAEBP