Positive Youth Justice Initiative
Positive Youth Justice (P.Y.J.I.) Liaison
Tommy Harris, P.Y.J.I. Liaison
Email: tharris@vcusd.org
Phone: (707) 556-8921 Ext. 50671 or 51128
Program Overview
The Positive Youth Justice Initiative is an innovative approach to transform Solano County's juvenile justice system. The focus is to improve the lives of our crossover youth - young people who have experienced neglect, abuse and/or trauma, have history in the child welfare and foster care system, and who currently are engaged in the juvenile justice system.
Program Design Elements:
Programmatically, the initiative combines positive youth development with an innovative behavioral health approach known as trauma-informed care, and delivers both approaches using service model known as wraparound. Below are brief descriptions of the four design elements:
- Positive Youth Development framework emphasizes all young people, even those engaged in juvenile justice systems, should be considered assets to their community and given every opportunity to be supported and meaningfully engaged.
- Trauma Informed Care focuses on the effects of trauma and its impact on youth involvement in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
- Wraparound Service Delivery aims to achieve positive outcomes by providing a structured and individualized team planning process that results in plans that are more effective and more relevant to the child, family and community by being more holistic than traditional care plans.
- Improved Operational Capacity includes strengthening the VCUSD infrastructure i.e. data collection and case management, implementation of screening and assessment tools to more accurately identify students' needs.
