Trauma-Informed work within Legal/Courts Systems

Lisa,

Pima County Juvenile Court, Tucson AZ has been working on becoming a trauma-responsive court for about 10-years (and our detention center for over 20-years). We decided against using the terminology of "trauma-informed" as the connotations of  being "informed" were passive, whereas "responsive" continues to push us to respond. We initially focused on training (e.g., trauma 101, vicarious/secondary trauma) and self-assessment. We were fortunate to be one of the first courts to be assessed by the NCFJCJ/NCTSN trauma-audit teams led by Dr. Shawn Marsh. Several years later, we continue to work toward implementing the recommendations and we hope to have a secondary follow up trauma audit in upcoming years. Some of our lessons learned were that as "fish cannot always see water" - thus it was beneficial to have outside trauma-informed eyes on our court. Besides the trauma audit, we periodically invited local trauma experts to observe our detention center and to offer recommendations.  We learned that the need for training remains ongoing and should not only include those staff with direct contact with our clientele, but also to include all administrative staff as well. We learned that much of our work focused on "projects" or areas identified within court divisions that potentially, but unintentionally  could have been re-victimizing clientele and staff (projects in which the "fish could see the water"). We learned that we needed to communicate the trauma-responsive work with staff and ask for their opinions on where they believed our focus should be. We learned that all of our efforts and "projects" needed to be documented so that we didn't lose our trauma-responsive history as key staff left. We also learned that we could not depend on always having a strong, charismatic trauma-responsive leader keeping "rattling the sabers" so as the initiative and work going, thus we needed to plan for how to institutionalize the work (a strong call out to retired Judges Karen Adam & Steve Rubin). We also learned that this work takes lots of time and lots of energy.

Thank you Aileen for these great resources!

Best of luck to you in your endeavors.

Beverly Tobiason

Morning!

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has a wealth of resources:

• NCTSN Bench Card for the Trauma Informed Judge http://www.nctsn.org/sites/def...ench_cards_final.pdf
• NCTSN Ten Things Every Juvenile Court Judge Should Know About Trauma and Delinquency http://www.nctsn.org/products/...auma-and-delinquency
• Think Trauma: A Training for Juvenile Justice Residential Settings http://www.nctsn.org/products/...residential-settings

Other resources:

• Tips on Youth Trauma for Juvenile Defenders http://njdc.info/tips-on-youth...-juvenile-defenders/

•  Trauma Informed Juvenile Justice Systems  https://www.ncmhjj.com/wp-cont...edJJSystem-FINAL.pdf

• National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice https://www.ncmhjj.com/topics/trauma/

Jane Stevens posted:

Bob -- Is all of that still happening in NH?

Hi Jane, It's become 'decentralized' to some degree, and 'more collaborative with other community efforts,  but part of the 'tasks' were 'delegated' to Public Libraries [in my immediate area]....and I'm in the library at the moment (closes at 5pm eastern time on Sunday, along with my internet connection...), so I conferred with our Reference Librarian, and Tri-County Community Action Program (603) 788-2683 had posted a HO/IP vacancy/hiring notices about a month ago-for 2 HO/IP Grafton county- NH vacancies, and I'd previously seen the notice, but it's no longer on the public notice[s] bulletin board in the library, with the supervisor's name/ contact person info.... 

Jane the original HO/IP grant proposal was written in 1994, ... and the former head of state-wide HO/IP now works for the NH Housing Finance Authority -- he 'wrote himself out of the grant' as we 'decentralized'.... and 'after hours tasks have [now] been 'picked up by our state-wide (2-1-1) Information and Referral Network...

Bob -- Is all of that still happening in NH?

During my first year {1996) with New Hampshire's [statewide] Homeless Outreach/Intervention Project (HO/IP), We were fortunate to have monthly 'Team meetings-which served as 'Clinical Supervision'-in lieu of CISD (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing), as 30% of my first-year caseload involved 'Domestic Violence'. 

In my assigned county, I was fortunate that one of the motels I had 'under contract' with-(to provide Immediate 'shelter' when the proximate appropriate shelters were full), was owned/run by a retired police officer who let DV clients register/sign-in under an 'Alias'/assumed name, as well as let 'DV clients' park their vehicles on the back side of the motel-so they couldn't be seen from 'proximate roadways'.

When I started that year, the County Sheriff had sent a 'Letter-Of-Introduction' of me and our state's program, to all the [county's] Town Chiefs-of-Police, in that county, and describing 'options' for 'interventions'. Three School Principals in that county were also quite helpful in making 'arrangements' for 'homeless' schoolchildren-in accordance with a 'guidebook' from our State Education Dep't's Office of Homeless Children and Youth, as well as the School Nurses in the one 'city' of that county. We also had Planned Parenthood's General Primary Care providing Free Vaccinations-so school children could be registered [state law required it] for school-usually before the conclusion of 'summer vacation'-as we found many families in Campgrounds about that time of year. ...

One Town Police Chief was rightfully concerned that I not go ['single-handedly'] to help a DV victim [without transportation] flee her home, He and an officer from that town, 'accompanied' me to her home, so we could 'leave safely'...  

A few years later, in another county I also worked in (whose Sheriff sent out a similar letter to the one noted in my 3rd paragraph), a family fleeing a DV situation, with a Pet dog-who was also given 'hospitality' at that county Animal Shelter [and 'visitation accommodations' for sixty days at no charge]...

Absent 'immediate options', one local Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault center's staff availed me 'informal Critical Incident Stress Debriefing' for some 'vicarious trauma' I was contending with, and .... I was 'most grateful' !

In the ensuing [almost two] decades, we've come to recognize an assortment of "Vicarious Trauma", such as "juror Stress" [and 'judicial stress'], such as was noted among jurors at Timothy McVey's trial; and some noted by Epidemiologists--such as was addressed at a 2000 [then Dartmouth, now] Geisel Medical School 'Grand Rounds' presentation entitled: "52% of Detroit Metropolitan Area Schoolchildren met the [then] DSM-IV criteria for PTSD" (Similar numbers [of  children exposed to] "Toxic Stress"-which can affect neuro-development], are now being reported for Schoolchildren in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Atlanta). Georgia Juvenile Judge Steven Teske addressed some of this in his 12/8/2015 JJIE article noting: "Kids charged with 'delinquent acts' are not "delinquent kids", they're neurologically wired to do stupid things"...

 The [trauma-informed] 'Intentional [POLICE] Peer Support' programs from Boston and Cambridge P.D.'s [and more recently a number of Massachusetts North Shore municipal police departments], which had 'Affiliated' with the 'On-Site Academy, and their 'Crisis/Respite' program for both 'First Responders' and 'Human Services Personnel',  at a serene rural farm...are noteworthy as we explore 'Trauma-Informed Community Building', such as Tarpon Springs and Gainesville, Florida, as well as Kansas City, Missouri are now noted for being 'Trauma-Informed Communities'