The National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice (EDJJ)

By Jennifer Slivka and Angeline Spain jslivka@air.org|aspain@air.org

Many existing programs and supports have been unable to meet the specialized needs of the expanding population of disabled youth within the juvenile justice system. In response, The National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice (EDJJ) was created to establish a knowledge base that would enable professionals, parents, and policymakers to respond to that overrepresentation and better understand ways to prevent youth from entering the system or recidivating once they have been released.

According to Peter Leone, EDJJ Project Director, the EDJJ concept was developed by the project officers at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) following several years of discussion, task force meetings, and professional consultation.

"These meetings and the input from the field helped identify problems associated with youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system and the absence of leadership, technical assistance, and research in this area," said Leone.

Jointly funded by DOE and DOJ, EDJJ is a collaborative project involving partners from the University of Maryland (Project Management; Educational and Related Services in Corrections and Policy Studies), the University of Kentucky (Prevention), Arizona State University (Transition and Aftercare), the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C. (Policy Studies and Dissemination), and the PACER parent advocacy center in Minneapolis (Parent and Family Training).

A national network of Resource Fellows representing diverse constituencies and an Advisory Board composed of practitioners, administrators, researchers, parents, and advocates also offer expertise in special education and juvenile justice.

The center is designed to develop more effective supports for youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system or those at-risk for involvement with the system. Their work involves both school and community-based prevention, education programs in detention and correctional settings, and transition activities as youth leave corrections and reenter their communities.

Collaborative research, training, technical assistance, and dissemination are the main tools EDJJ uses to accomplish their goal of reducing the number of youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system.

"States and local jurisdictions contact EDJJ for technical assistance and training on a regular basis," said Leone. "In fact, we have difficulty responding to all of the requests we receive. Some of the training we conduct is held at conferences and regional meetings."

Training and technical assistance also occurs in an array of other formats, from on-site visits and consultation to the dissemination of resources through their Web site, online newsletter, and other publications.

EDJJ recently partnered with the Corrections Learning Network (CLN) to film a variety of topics for distance learning, which will be available for professional development through CLN beginning spring 2004.

To develop programming targets, EDJJ surveyed neglected/delinquent practitioners and identified eight areas of training need. They subsequently narrowed their focus to address four main areas of need: transition; instructional strategies; assessment; and curriculum, said Dr. Sarup Mathur, EDJJ Associate Director from Arizona State University. Mathur directs the collaboration with CLN.

"We wanted to focus on timeless features, regardless of where the law [NCLB] goes," she said.

According to Mathur, the transition segment is in the editing process and should be ready for broadcast by CLN very soon. The other three modules are currently being scripted and will be ready in the coming months.

In the last year, she has concentrated on professional development for all caretakers involved with the children. This includes investigating venues for disseminating information and conceptualizing professional development not as "a one-shot deal, like one workshop where a trainer talked about a particular interaction or one conference, but as development - an on-going, fleshed-out, coordinated project that will lead to development of that research."

Mathur sees the possibilities for change in professional development as efforts are made to convert research into practice. This includes filling the gaps in transition and "looking down the road: how many kids go back to school, how many kids truly become employed, and how many sense that their lives have improved."

She considers professional development the most dynamic aspect of the neglected/delinquent field.

"You can never be fully trained. Closing the door and saying 'I already know' is a very linear approach to knowledge," said Mathur. "Even caretakers that were trained 20 or 30 years ago need the research and information that is upcoming.

Adopting a path of life-long learning instead of following what you have been doing is the only way to continually build capacity."