After years of collaborating, two local leaders helped bring MST to Toledo, Ohio and saw reductions in youth incarceration

When you meet matriarchs, you just know it. You feel their power, and you recognize their force. That’s how I felt when I made the acquaintance of Deborah Hodges, administrator of the Lucas County (Ohio) Juvenile Court and her colleague, Karen Olnhausen of their Mental Health and Recovery Services Board. In 2010, I met them at the launch of Toledo’s Multisystemic Therapy (MST) program. These are the ladies whom I affectionately call the godmothers of MST in Toledo because they had worked for years to bring it to their community. Finally, their goal was achieved through funding from the Ohio Department of Youth Services Behavioral Health Juvenile Justice Initiative.

This report documents legislative victories as well as what is left to be done in keeping youth out of adult court

Twelve years ago, the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) set out to get young people removed from the adult justice system. In an effort to achieve that goal, since 2011, it has issued periodically a State Trends Report documenting legislative victories and what’s left to be done.

In that time, a lot has changed. Although, too much has stayed the same. The CFYJ laid out its findings in the recently released “Raising the Bar: State Trends in Keeping Youth Out of Adult Courts (2015-2017).”

Inspired from an unlikely place, one MST expert reflects on the value of kindness 

“You’re mean to each other.” That's what he said, and it shocked me. Maybe because it's true, and I didn't want to believe it. Or maybe I've been too ignorant to see it and just didn't want to believe it. Or maybe I was just embarrassed by the simple truth of it. Whatever it was, it caused me to think about those words for a long time. That’s definitely not the perception I want others to have.

Those were the words of a taxi driver as he drove me from the airport to my hotel upon my arrival in a foreign country.

How Multisystemic Therapy gave this young man from Compton a chance to be more than a statistic

In the summer of 2017, The New Yorker ran an article titled “American Inferno: The Life of a South Central Statistic.” This was a woman’s story of how her cousin became involved in the juvenile  justice system and his eventual murder—making him one more tragic statistic.

As a Multisystemic Therapy (MST) therapist in the Compton and South Central areas of Los Angeles County, I see these “statistics” play out in real life.

Virginia replaces correctional centers with evidence-based practices, MST is one of them

In June 2017, the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) closed its Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, which had been housing more than 160 young men. The center had first started receiving youth offenders in 1890, and its yearly budget had grown to $26,039,540 by 2016.

The closing was good news for some youth advocates. Even better news came this month when the DJJ announced it would be using savings from the closing to fund Multisystemic Therapy (MST). In a statement, the department referred to MST as “a highly-regarded evidence-based model,” which would be made available “to court-involved youth in traditionally underserved areas of the Commonwealth.”

Members of the new MST teams

New Jersey calls for a bigger investment in community-based programs to lower disparities in the juvenile justice system

New Jersey has made progress in lowering the number of incarcerated juveniles. From 1997 to 2010, the confined youth population was cut by 53 percent. These efforts should be applauded. 

Unfortunately, there are other statistics that are far less commendable—those showing distressing racial disparities. 

MST for Problem Sexual Behavior works with youth engaging in inappropriate sexual behaviour

The sexual behaviour of young people is often difficult to fathom, even more so when that behaviour harms someone else. Estimates suggest that nearly a quarter of reported cases of child sexual abuse are committed by an individual younger than 18. Victims are often younger than the perpetrator and known to them, either as a family member or family friend.

L.A. County Bureau Chief says his staff trusts Multisystemic Therapy as treatment for at-risk youth

I first learned of Multisystemic Therapy (MST) in 2003 when I was assigned to the Los Angeles County Probation Department’s Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) program. JJCPA operates from a platform of evidence-based practices and principles that unite and coordinate a wide range of services. Through JJCPA, the probation department has continued to partner with the Department of Mental Health to contract with local agencies to provide MST services. 

It did not take me long to realize the value and potential of a therapist who is engaged with the youth’s social ecology. 

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) may be the long-awaited bicameral win that Congress has been searching for this year 

First enacted in 1974, the JJDPA provides four core protections for young people who are involved in the juvenile justice system. The legislation ensures that youth are not housed in adult facilities, that they are sight and sound separated from adult inmates, and that states address racial and ethnic disparities within their systems. The law also prohibits the incarceration of young people for status offenses such as running away from home and skipping school. These status-offense behaviors are illegal only because the person engaging in them has not yet reached the age of majority. 

Fight for alternatives to locking kids up. Fight for evidence-based programs.

It’s often said that if a young person ends up in prison, it’s a sign that the “system” failed somewhere along the way. Early warning signs were missed, help was not available or it came too late. Often, good people and good programs were simply not available due to lack of funds.

Is there really a lack of funds, or are available funds just being spent the wrong way?