Performancebased Standards in Juvenile Confinement Facilities

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Performance-based Standards in Juvenile
Confinement Facilities
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Background

• Conditions of Confinement Study (1990 - 1994)
• Mandated by Congress
• Funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and
  Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Covered almost 1,000 detention centers and
  training schools
• Mail Survey (combined with OJJDPs 1991 Children
  in Custody Census)
• Site Visits to 95 facilities

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Conditions of Confinement Study (1990-1994)

• Research Question Are conditions of confinement
  better in facilities that meet national
  professional standards?
• Finding Conformance to existing standards was
  not associated with lower rates of critical
  incidents, including
• Suicidal behavior
• Escapes and Attempted Escapes
• Injuries -- to staff and residents
• Use of Restraints
• Use of Isolation

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Results of Conditions of Confinement Study

• Conclusion Existing standards emphasized
  conforming to processes and procedures, not
  achieving outcomes.
• Recommendation Develop performance-based
  standards, which set goals facilities should
  strive to attain, and provide objective outcome
  measures that facilities can use to assess their
  progress toward goals over time.
• Result In 1995 OJJDP funded the Performance
  Standards Project to implement and test this
  recommendation.
• Award to Council of Juvenile Corrections
  Administrators
• Subcontract to Abt Associates Inc. for technical
  support

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Performance Based Standards Project

• Objective Improve conditions of confinement in
  juvenile detention centers and training schools
  by implementing goal-based standards
• Unit of Analysis Individual confinement facility
• Participation Voluntary
• Number of Participating Facilities 32 by 1999
  100 by 2001.

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Performance Based Standards Project

• Approach
• Expert panels define goals, performance standards
  and outcome measures.
• Facilities conduct assessments to identify
  problems.
• Facilities use website to enter data on
  practices, receive reports on problems, identify
  causes of problems, develop and monitor
  improvement plans, and monitor progress in
  improving practices.
• Facilities and project staff develop and
  implement low-cost improvement plans.
• Facilities undergo continuous incremental
  improvement over time.

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Performance Based Standards Project

• Principles that guided the effort
• Define goals and outcomes that are broadly valued
  by
• Professional organizations and leaders
• Facility staff
• Ex. Major misconduct (www.performance-standards.o
  rg)
• Keep facilities participation costs low
• Data collection, analysis and utilization
• Affordable fixes, quick results
• Return value to participating facilities
• Build their analytical capacity
• Improve their performance over time
• Compare their practice to similar facilities and
  field averages

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Lessons for Project Administration
• Recruit systems, not facilities
• Obtain strong administrative support
• Develop broad-based staff buy-in within
  facilities
• Emphasize low-cost reforms.
• Use nationally recognized expert practitioners to
  guide facilities through the assessment and
  improvement process

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Recruit Systems, not facilities
• Six states (with 28 facilities) are participating
  system-wide.
• Advantages of recruiting systems rather than
  facilities
• bolsters top administrators support
• easier to involve other stakeholders (governor,
  legislator, juvenile justice leadership, etc.)
• provides strong foundation for improving
  juveniles reintegration into their communities
• solves data collection problems for all
  facilities in the system (need to solve linkage
  to agency MIS only once)

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Obtain strong administrative support
• The project has higher visibility within the
  agency
• There is more likely to be unambiguous support
  down the chain of command
• The project is more likely to be integrated into
  agencys priorities (e.g., written into strategic
  plan, budget requests, etc.)
• Key stakeholders outside the agency are more
  likely to become involved

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Encourage broad-based staff buy-in within
  facilities
• Orientation program to acquaint more staff
• Promote improvement plans that
• tackle many problems (involves more staff in
  problem solving)
• emphasize quick, affordable solutions (gets fast
  results)
• Involve (and support) more facility staff in data
  collection
• Agency efforts to build support and morale
• Briefings
• Mentors
• Publicity and recognition

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Emphasize low-cost reforms
• Small awards usually are enough
• Important to drive home message that performance
  improvement does not always require substantial
  new resources

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Use nationally recognized expert practitioners to
  guide facilities through the improvement process
• Gives staff of facilities a broad vision on the
  problems they face (they tend to be isolated from
  the field by the nature of their jobs)
• Links the project to key juvenile justice
  organizations

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The Website (www.performance-standards.org)

• Facilities use the PbS Website to
• Enter data (baseline and reassessment)
• Obtain site reports that summarize their
  performance and problems
• Access diagnostic pages used to
• Specify problems
• Obtain resources
• Develop and monitor facility improvement plans
• Communicate with other facilities and project
  staff.

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Website Data Flow (www.performance-standards.org)
Enter Data Assess and re-assess
Site Report Identify problems
Diagnostic pages Solve problems
Action Plan Fix problems
Implement Action Plan Monitor Progress
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Performance-based Standards Project

• Lessons learned about web-based data collection
• Keep data collection costs low
• Return value to participants
• Train and support site coordinators
• Provide rapid feedback reports
• Assure data quality, including error and logic
  checks as data is entered

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Keep data collection costs low
• extract as much info as possible from existing
  MIS
• dont duplicate existing data collection
• with web-based data entry, technical
  costs/requirements are low

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Return value to participants
• Feedback reports on practices that
• show their practices on key outcomes over time
  and
• compare their practices to the average of other
  participants
• Identify problematic practices
• help them identify the causes of their
  problematic practices
• Provide resources to help them correct
  problematic practices

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Train and support site coordinators
• Initial training
• Refresher training
• Users Manual
• Give on-call assistance during data collection
• Help them communicate with peers and project staff

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Perform real-time error and logic checks
• Check for correct type of data (numeric, alpha)
• Check for out-or range responses
• Check for illogical data entries

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Issue useful feedback reports quickly
• Clean data rapidly
• Automatically generate reports
• Scan reports for obvious errors
• Post reports on the website in PDF format within
  two weeks of data entry closure

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Performance-based Standards Project

• Assure data quality
• Monitor progress of data entry (check entries on
  the web)
• Real-time error and logic checks are programmed
  into website and occur at moment of data entry
• Survey site coordinators re data entry problems
  and develop solutions
• Visit selected sites and verify data by recoding.
• Use findings to refine data collection
  instruments and site coordinator training