August 21, 2020 Redeploy Illinois Oversight Board

Audience

Redeploy Illinois Oversight Board Members and Staff. The public is welcome to attend.

Date/Time

Friday, August 21, 2020

12:30pm to 2:30pm

Location

This meeting will be a Webex Virtual Meeting

Call in number: (312) 535-8110 or US Toll (415) 655-0002

Meeting Number (access code): 133 880 9055

Agenda

  1. Call to order/Roll call
  2. Approval of Minutes
    1. 6/12/20 RIOB Meeting
  3. DHS Update
  4. DJJ Update
  5. Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council Update
  6. FY21 Program and Expenditures update
    1. Redeploy Program expenditures and commitments/number served
    2. ICOY Expenditures
  7. FY21 Budget revision requests discussion
    1. 1st Judicial Circuit
    2. Macon County
  8. Redeploy Illinois Program Evaluation presentation (Lily Gleicher)
  9. Redeploy Illinois Program Evaluation discussion
  10. FY21 RIOB Virtual Planning Meeting discussion
  11. Adjourn

Upcoming meetings/events:

  • RIOB Planning Meetings: Begin Thursday, September 17th, 2020
  • Full Board Meeting: Friday, September 18th, 2020
  • Executive Board Meeting: Friday, October 16th, 2020

Meeting Minutes

  1. Call to Order - The meeting was called to order at 12:37pm.
  2. Roll Call
    Secretary Grace Hou, Janet Ahern, Carla Barnes, Honorable Walter Brandon, Betsy Clarke, Avik Das, Dan Hunt, Krish Mohip, Peter Perry, Tracey Seneca, Jason Stamps, Anne Studzinski, Honorable George Timberlake, Rick Velasquez, Heidi Mueller, Paula Wolff.
    DHS Staff: Erica Hughes, Kristen Marshall
    ICOY Staff: Katy Culleeny, Leslie Ress, Honorable Steve Sawyer, Honorable Colleen Sheehan
    Guests: MaryAnn Dyar, Garien Gatewood Lily Gleicher, Omar Jamil, Korynna Lopez
    A quorum was declared. MaryAnn Dyar reminded the Board they need substantive votes to be done by roll call to be in accordance with new guidelines on virtual meetings pursuant to the Open Meetings Act.
  3. Approval of Minutes
    Motion: Anne Studzinski moved approval of the minutes from the June 12, 2020 meeting. Judge Walter Brandon seconded the motion.  Motion Passed with 12 affirmative votes.
  4. DHS Update
    Secretary Hou gave a brief update on Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) activities from March through July, highlighting their efforts to keep employees and clients safe while dramatically increasing the services available in breadth and depth. Secretary Hou encouraged Board members to follow up with her after the meeting if they had questions.
    Kristen Marshall provided updates on contracts and let the Board know that payments have been sent out. In response to a question from Rick Velasquez, Ms. Marshall explained that DHS will provide a 2-3-month advance payment to providers if they are qualified as low-risk. A provider is deemed low-risk based on the results of a risk assessment which includes budget specific questions that ensure the provider could withstand no payments for two months and still have enough funding to provide services and pay staff. Mr. Velasquez recognized the importance of this process in ensuring continuation of services.
  5. Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ) Update
    Director Mueller gave a high-level overview of the 21st Century IDJJ Model, a plan to close the remaining youth prisons and replace them with a residential, community-based model with a continuum of services over the next four years. Director Mueller explained the goal is to have no more than 30-50 youths at each new facility and that youth are as close to home and as integrated with their family and community as possible. The model will be rolled out over the next four years in three phases. Phase 1 includes gathering stakeholders for idea-sharing and renovating select properties. It also includes ramping up community-based work, including restructuring aftercare to include more service provision than supervision alone and developing a victim services department. In Phase 2, Director Mueller anticipates some renovations will be complete and the department will begin transferring youth to the new facilities. In Phase 2 and into Phase 3, IDJJ will continuously evaluate if additional residential facilities are needed while existing IDJJ facilities will be transferred over to the Department of Corrections. Director Mueller highlighted that creating a humane, effective, and developmentally appropriate system is a never-ending project and that feedback from all sectors has been overwhelmingly positive.
    Director Heidi Mueller expressed concerns of continued high numbers of youth in detention despite dramatic decreases in IDJJ population. Director Mueller highlighted the need for legislative action on the Juvenile Ombudsman to include youth in detention as youth in detention have started to reach out to the Ombudsman. There are also concerns that youth in some detention centers nutritional needs are not being met due to resource constraints.
  6. Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council Update
    Garien Gatewood discussed recent and upcoming efforts regarding detention initiatives and let Board members know he will be working with Dan Hunt and Karrie Rueter to convene detention stakeholders to get traction on a detention pilot.
    Betsy Clarke raised concerns about the continued use of detention for youth with low-level offenses that are not eligible for IDJJ, even throughout the pandemic. Mr. Velasquez mentioned how the monthly detention data reports published by the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission (IJJC) with the Center for Research and Policy Development (CPRD) will be useful for the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOIC) and local detention centers to address these concerns as they arise.
  7. FY21 Program and Expenditures Update
    Secretary Hou invited Ms. Marshall to discuss the FY21 expenditures.
    Ms. Marshall made a correction to the agenda, this section should be titled FY20 expenditures, and that the expenditure reports are attached to the meeting invitation as a handout. There will be an opportunity for more in-depth conversation and analysis at the upcoming planning meetings.
  8. FY21 Budget Revision Requests
    Secretary Hou invited Erica Hughes to present the budget revision requests from the 1st Circuit and Macon County.
    1st Circuit: Ms. Hughes explained the 1st circuit is requesting a $46,360 revision. $40,000 is due to a clerical error in the application. They are requesting the remaining $6,360 because the location they originally selected to house their program was used for DHS overflow during the pandemic this past spring. The $6,360 would cover the difference in cost for the new location they secured.
    Motion: Judge Timberlake moved approval of the 1st Circuit's budget revision request. Ms. Studzinski seconded the motion.
    Motion Passed with 13 affirmative votes.
    Macon County: Ms. Hughes explained to the Board that Macon County is seeking an additional $104,000 in funding. Macon County is looking to expand operating hours for their current after-school and summer programming to include regular school day hours to assist Redeploy youth who have struggled with remote learning. This programming will be conducted with proper health and safety considerations at an existing non-profit service provider. Macon County will also implement a mentoring program, and they have identified qualified young adult mentors and have discussed adequate dosage. Ms. Hughes assured the Board Macon is receiving ample technical assistance and should be able to implement these programs appropriately.
    Janet Ahern asked Ms. Hughes to ensure there is no issue with their current daycare licensure. Mr. Velasquez asked Ms. Hughes how efficacy of programs and responses in programs are being tracked and monitored and to please keep the Board apprised as to how the educational programming fares, expressing interest in whether the programming matches the needs of the highest risk youth. Judge Brandon expressed appreciation for the program facilitating relationship building with the youth, especially with the premise of education. Judge Timberlake echoed the support with the observation that this is a new and good approach for Macon County due to new stakeholders.
    Motion: Judge Timberlake moved approval of Macon County's budget revision request. Mr. Velasquez seconded the motion.
    Motion Passed with 13 affirmative votes.
  9. Redeploy Illinois Program Evaluation Presentation (Lily Gleicher)
    Secretary Hou invited Lily Gleicher from the Illinois Criminal Justice Authority to present the report "Exploratory Evaluation of Redeploy Illinois: Findings on Incentive-Based Juvenile Diversion Services" to the Board. The study looked at 749 Redeploy youth, ages 10-17, who exited the program between June 2009 and September 2019.
    Dr. Gleicher provided the Board with a high-level overview of the findings and recommendations from the report. The four recommendations are as follows:
    1. Enhance adherence to Risk Needs Responsivity model; reduce discretion in Redeploy acceptance.
    2. Examine services to ensure services meet youth needs and adhere to best practices (are effective); developmentally appropriate and responsive to jurisdictional needs
    3. Clarify and concretely (re)define success; clarify "at-risk" grounded in research; clarify definitions for discharge statuses.
    4. Reduce overuse, duplicative assessment and over-prescription of services; more cohesive integration with probation.
      Dr. Gleicher also addressed limitations of the report, including the inability to compare sites to each other as a major hindrance to evaluating overall efficacy. That kind of assessment would require meta-analysis and individual process evaluations. Dr. Gleicher also highlighted that the significant barrier to data-driven decision-making and assessing impact of policy changes is the inability to pull data from the eCornerstone system.
  10. Redeploy Illinois Program Evaluation Discussion
    Board members discussed outcomes and raised questions. Avik Das asked Dr. Gleicher to clarify the time frame in which youth outcomes were tracked following dismissal or release from Redeploy. Dr. Gleicher explained that the time varied from 8 months to 3 years.
    Mr. Velasquez expressed concern that the report findings indicate that the program tends to benefit white youth, to which Dr. Gleicher confirmed that some sites did have significant racial and ethnic disparities. Mr. Velasquez emphasized the importance of these findings and the need for this to remain a topic of future discussion, Secretary Hou echoed his concern, emphasizing the need to address the operational challenges.
  11. FY21 RIOB Virtual Planning Meeting Discussion
    Secretary Hou invited Ms. Studzinski to present on the plan for the upcoming Board planning meetings. Ms. Studzinski discussed the possibility of a full Board meeting to start a series of smaller, two-hour topical meetings with smaller groups that Board members could sign up for over the course of a couple weeks. Topics would include but are not limited to: the discussion of the ICJIA report, re-release of the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), how to prescribe expectations for sites on Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED, Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI), potential changes to the screening tool used and how to assess the whole child, expectations around services, how to address the wholistic needs of the youth, ensuring program fidelity and finally, preparing for the upcoming site visits.
    Mr. Velasquez emphasized the need for data that is accessible, Ms. Studzinski agreed and outlined three components for data collection, including clear expectations and definitions, better supervision and data input to eCornerstone from sites, and intervention from DHS and DJJ to access the data. In further discussion on screening and assessment tools, Mr. Hill and Ms. Studzinski discussed working backwards from desired outcomes to ensure sufficient screening and assessment, whether or not that continues to be the Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (YASI) or a new tool will be determined.
    Ms. Clarke suggested efforts to make Redeploy a statewide program and seizing the moment in regard to the changes happening with IDJJ.
    Ms. Ahern raised concern that smaller group meetings would not facilitate meaningful engagement and discussion. After brief discussion, Ms. Studzinski suggested the planning committee reconvene and devise a new plan.
  12. Other Discussion
    Mr. Velasquez suggested the next agenda include a point for "Old Business" to ensure that previous items and requests are fulfilled and addressed between meetings.
  13. Adjourn
    Paul Wolff moved adjourning. Mr. Das seconded the motion.
    Motion passed.
    Upcoming meetings/events:
    RIOB Planning Meetings: Begin Thursday, September 17th, 2020
    Full Board Meeting: Friday, September 18th, 2020
    Executive Board Meeting: Friday, October 16th, 2020