Transition Toolkit 2.0: Meeting the Educational Needs of Youth Exposed to the Juvenile Justice System

The second edition of NDTAC's Transition Toolkit brings together strategies, existing practices, and updated resources and documents on transition to enable administrators and service providers to provide high-quality transition services for children and youth moving into, through, and out of education programs within the juvenile justice system.

The Mentoring Toolkit: Resources for Developing Programs for Incarcerated Youth

NDTAC's Mentoring Toolkit provides an overview of general mentoring research, insight into the special needs of incarcerated youth, and practical strategies for designing mentoring programs to meet those needs. The Toolkit also showcases some mentoring programs that are currently serving incarcerated youth. Both an unabridged and an abridged version are available for download.

Assessment Toolkit: Measuring Student Academic Performance

The Assessment Toolkit is designed to help State administrators and local program managers track and improve their academic assessment procedures and results for students who are neglected or delinquent. The toolkit includes an overview of the benefits of collecting and using academic assessment data; a variety of data collection materials, including interactive electronics tables and graphs; and a discussion of how to use the results of the data collection to guide educational programming at the student, facility, and State levels.

Self-Study Toolkit
Use this toolkit to measure how your facility is doing and what you can do to improve. The toolkit is divided into modules that contain background information on the issue, a printable data collection table, and a list of additional resources.

1. Records Transfer and Maintenance
2. Comprehensive Assessment at Entry
3. Academic Assessment and Curricula
4. Highly Qualified Teachers (HQT)
5. Collecting and Using Data

Tool Kit on Teaching and Assessing Students with Disabilities

This toolkit, from the U.S. Department of Education, brings together the most current and accurate information, including research briefs and resources designed to improve instruction, assessment, and accountability for students with disabilities in a format that is easy to access and to understand. The Tool Kit will assist state personnel, schools, and families in their efforts to ensure that all students with disabilities receive a quality education. The Tool Kit includes information about the Department's investments, papers on large-scale assessment, technical assistance (TA) products, and resources.

Casey Life Skills

An online, easy-to-use tool for youth to assess their strengths in life skills such as money management, work and study habits, self-care, and independent living. Teachers and mentors can also create customized learning plans and help plan goals and track results of youth. link »

Partnerships for After-School Success toolkits

The National Collaboration for Youth, a coalition of more than 40 national agencies, which together reach over 40 million youth annually, provides these toolkits. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation provided funding to National Assembly/National Collaboration for Youth to create these resources. The toolkits offer research supporting the need for school-CBO partnerships; successful strategies for creating and sustaining partnerships; and checklists and tools.

Youth Life Skills

National Resource Center for Youth Services – features a newsletter devoted entirely to adolescent independent living programming. They also provide creative Life Skills activities, a Facing Independence Handbook and 100 questions guide young adult toward self-sufficiency.

A Family's Guide to the Child Welfare System

A handbook designed to answer questions about the child welfare system for parents and additional family members.

Barriers and Promising Approaches to Workforce and Youth Development for
Young Offenders (PDF)

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, in collaboration with the National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC), the Youth Development and Research Fund (YDRF), and the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), developed this toolkit to outline the barriers to juvenile justice system reform, review state and local policies that promote effective programming, and examine exemplary programs that serve youth offenders.

Criteria and Self-Assessment for Alternative Education

The National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) Education Development Network (EDNet) publishes a self-assessment tool designed to improve school and education programs.

Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform

This 13-booklet series, published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, provides information on implementing juvenile justice reform and details policies and practices developed from the Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI).