School-Based Probation

Establishing partnerships between juvenile probation departments and schools is another innovative approach to effective intervention with young offenders, including juveniles on probation and, in jurisdictions where probation departments also serve youth returning from incarceration, juveniles on parole. The uniting of schools and probation departments has been successful in communities and counties across the United States, including Allentown, PA; Jefferson, IN; Norfolk, VA; and Fresno, Kern, Yuba, and Monterey Counties, CA.

Educators and juvenile probation officers share a common goal: helping young people acquire knowledge and develop skills that lead to positive and productive lifestyles. As officials of the juvenile court, school-based probation officers provide control, supervision, and incentives that delinquent youth often need to attend school regularly and comply with school rules and regulations. School-based probation officers can also intervene in crisis situations involving juvenile probation clients and can assist schools in handling disruptive behavior by clients. Schools can contribute to probation objectives by providing student probationers with a structured environment for learning basic life skills and by designing an academic program tailored to the juvenile's individual needs.

School-based probation officers may perform a variety of specific functions:

• Notifying the school of a student's conditions of probation or parole and any special educational or therapeutic needs that should be addressed through school programming.
  
  
• Monitoring the attendance, school performance, and behavior of youth on probation or parole or undergoing informal behavioral adjustment.
  
  
• Conducting home visits and coordinating intervention services that must be obtained for students and families from sources outside the school system.
  
  
• Coordinating reentry conferences for students returning to school following placement in a juvenile justice facility.
  
  
• Providing services to minors who are not wards of the State but were referred to probation for a variety of reasons (including minor offenses, school discipline and behavior problems, and family difficulties).
  
  
• Counseling young people in danger of being expelled due to truancy problems.

The Allentown Model

The practice of physically placing full-time juvenile probation officers on school campuses was first put into effect by Lehigh County Juvenile Probation and the Allentown School District in Pennsylvania.²² The goal of the program was to strengthen collaboration between the school district and the probation department toward meeting their common objectives. By creating a mutual understanding of each other's duties, functions, and limitations, the two agencies enhanced their ability to coordinate services for juveniles and their families.

The Allentown model uses a dual case management system for student probation clients. Juveniles are assigned two probation officers: a school-based officer, who develops treatment plans and handles day-to-day monitoring of the student's behavior, and a court-based officer, who attends all court proceedings and handles other out-of-school probation functions relative to that student. The school-based probation officers spend the majority of their time on campus.

The primary goal of probation officers is to provide guidance by helping juvenile probationers avoid situations that may lead them into further involvement with the juvenile justice system. Improving the school performance of student probationers is a key objective for achieving that goal. To monitor improvement, the two agencies must share relevant information with each other. The probation officer needs to be aware of the prior academic functioning of the student. The school needs to know about special education or treatment needs that can be addressed through district services.

At the inception of the Allentown program, juvenile record sharing was a major concern for both the school district and the probation department. The confidentiality of sensitive information needed to be preserved to avoid labeling or otherwise stigmatizing juveniles. These issues were worked out in a formal information-sharing agreement, which bases release of records on each agency's legitimate need to know.

In addition to specifying information-sharing arrangements, written agreements between the school district and probation department also outline funding arrangements and reporting structures and identify exactly what is expected of each of the parties involved. (Funding arrangements vary. For example, a school and a probation department may jointly pay the salaries of the officers involved, or one agency may provide the entire funding while the other furnishes office space and equipment.)

In developing a school-based juvenile probation program, precautions must be taken to ensure that the initiative is not actually creating additional referrals to and/or increasing involvement of youth with the justice system. To guard against this possibility, school-based probation officers should work only with youth already on juvenile probation and should not serve as general disciplinarians for the student body. The Allentown model requires that school-based probation be reserved for youth within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. School-based officers may also work with student parolees, either alone or in concert with parole/aftercare staff.

From the Courthouse to the Schoolhouse: Making Successful Transitions	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • February 2000