Leveraging Facility Staff Voice: Identifying Community Partners When Strengthening Juvenile Justice Facility Climates.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Leveraging Facility Staff Voice: Identifying Community Partners When Strengthening Juvenile Justice Facility Climates.
Authors:	Prewitt, Nicole B.¹, Jolivette, Kristine, Odom, Kimberly P.², Shelton, Stephanie Anne³, Ma, Wenchao⁴, Hester, Olivia R.⁵, Preast, June L.⁶, Sanders, Sara⁷
Source:	Journal of Correctional Education. May2025, Vol. 76 Issue 2, p3-23. 21p.
Subject Terms:	Youth services, Program effectiveness (Education), *Institutional environment, Juvenile justice administration, Coalitions, Employee morale
Abstract:	Community partnerships are critically important to the overall functioning of juvenile justice facilities because such partnerships support facility climate, services provided to youth, and supports for youth transitioning back into their communities. However, not much is formally known about the identity of community partners supporting these facilities and their climates. The climate is the overall environment, and when maximally positive, there are decreased behavioral incidents and increased outcomes in youth engagement, treatment, programming, and education. When it is not positive, however, there are serious consequences. For facility staff, there could be decreased fidelity of programming implementation and overall engagement, an increase in the use of a coercive and punishment mindset, movement toward a non-habilitative focus, increased job dissatisfaction and stress, and staff shortages. The purpose of this study is to assist staff in juvenile justice facilities with the identification of their community partners while learning more about how staff conceptualize facility climate and the community partners needed to help support and maintain improved facility climate. The authors examined how staff understood and evaluated their partnerships with the overall purpose of facilitating more partnerships for climate improvement purposes. Analysis began by identifying and classifying all partners participants named. Afterward, these classifications served as the basis of a priori coding to contextualize how participants described these partners, which was followed by inductive coding to establish themes encapsulating participants' discussions of these partnerships and their effects on facility climate. After data analysis, which included inter-rater reliability checks with research team members throughout, member checking was utilized to expand the authors' scopes and understanding of their comprehensive partner list based specifically on juvenile justice staff's current partnerships and priorities. This work has identified established and emerging partners, reciprocal and unidirectional gratitude between facilities and partners, and facility-specific contexts that shape partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

Description
Abstract:	Community partnerships are critically important to the overall functioning of juvenile justice facilities because such partnerships support facility climate, services provided to youth, and supports for youth transitioning back into their communities. However, not much is formally known about the identity of community partners supporting these facilities and their climates. The climate is the overall environment, and when maximally positive, there are decreased behavioral incidents and increased outcomes in youth engagement, treatment, programming, and education. When it is not positive, however, there are serious consequences. For facility staff, there could be decreased fidelity of programming implementation and overall engagement, an increase in the use of a coercive and punishment mindset, movement toward a non-habilitative focus, increased job dissatisfaction and stress, and staff shortages. The purpose of this study is to assist staff in juvenile justice facilities with the identification of their community partners while learning more about how staff conceptualize facility climate and the community partners needed to help support and maintain improved facility climate. The authors examined how staff understood and evaluated their partnerships with the overall purpose of facilitating more partnerships for climate improvement purposes. Analysis began by identifying and classifying all partners participants named. Afterward, these classifications served as the basis of a priori coding to contextualize how participants described these partners, which was followed by inductive coding to establish themes encapsulating participants' discussions of these partnerships and their effects on facility climate. After data analysis, which included inter-rater reliability checks with research team members throughout, member checking was utilized to expand the authors' scopes and understanding of their comprehensive partner list based specifically on juvenile justice staff's current partnerships and priorities. This work has identified established and emerging partners, reciprocal and unidirectional gratitude between facilities and partners, and facility-specific contexts that shape partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	07402708