DCYF Juvenile Rehabilitation Programs

The Legislature should consider addressing crowding issues at DCYF secure facilities to improve safety.

The facilities the state uses, and the youth served in juvenile rehabilitation, are both policy decisions. Potential policy changes to address crowding at DCYF facilities could include:

• Creating additional facility capacity. If the Legislature chooses this option, it should consider smaller facilities and community-based services consistent with other states and best practices.
• Changing or clarifying statutory criteria for:
• Who DCYF is required to serve in juvenile rehabilitation.
• When young people are eligible for community facilities and Community Transition Services.
• When DCYF has the authority to transfer young people with adult sentences beyond age 25 to the Department of Corrections.

DCYF should take steps to increase staff retention, especially for front-line staff.

The steps should include:

• Collect and use staff feedback to understand why staff leave positions and why current staff stay in their jobs. This could include exit interviews, surveys, or focus groups. Feedback should be representative, reliable, and collected consistently.
• Analyze how factors such as compensation, staff training, staffing ratios, workplace culture, working conditions, and staff well-being contribute to staff turnover.
• Use the feedback and analysis to develop and implement a retention strategy that includes baseline measurements and performance targets.

DCYF should improve staff training to ensure staff are safe, supported, and prepared for their jobs.

In so doing, it should:

• Incorporate staff feedback on training needs. This may require additional data collection or use of existing data such as the Performance-based Standards. If existing data is used, DCYF should ensure it is collected consistently and reliably.
• Provide additional on-the-job training and job shadowing with qualified staff.
• Ensure staff have time to receive refresher training.
• Monitor and confirm staff complete refresher training.
• Continue to improve community facilities' access to training opportunities.

DCYF should develop clear incident response procedures for assaults, riots, and other incidents and ensure the procedures are followed.

As noted in Part 4, DCYF has clear incident response procedures for incidents related to compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act and facility escapes. These procedures include clear steps for how and when staff should intervene and could serve as a model for other types of incidents.

DCYF is also implementing a new behavior management system. As it implements this system and develops incident response procedures for assaults, riots, and other incidents, it should ensure:

• The procedures include clear steps for when staff should intervene during the incident.
• How staff should intervene during the incident. This should include the types of physical interventions that are appropriate.
• The procedures are followed, which may require additional staff training, data collection, and review.

DCYF should use validated assessments that accurately predict risks and identify needs of its population.

RCW 13.40.020 requires DCYF to use validated assessments for identifying risk. RCW 13.40.205 allows DCYF's Office of Innovation, Alignment, and Accountability (OIAA) or an external researcher to validate the assessments.

Validation studies require accurate data collection. DCYF should continue to refine and improve its administration of assessments to ensure reliable and consistent data is available. This may require additional staff training and quality assurance.

Validation studies can take time. To be valid, an assessment should be updated as the population changes. DCYF should review and validate the assessments every three years.

Once validated, DCYF should use assessment results to inform placement decisions (e.g., whether young people can live in less secure settings) and program delivery.

DCYF should evaluate the mix of rehabilitative programs offered to ensure they align with the needs of its current population.

For example, it should:

• Use assessment results to identify common needs of young people in each facility and ensure there are sufficient programs and services available.
• Ensure programs are also available for female young people.
• Reevaluate the mix of programs as the population changes (e.g., becomes older, longer sentences, more acute needs).

DCYF should match specific rehabilitative programs with each young person's individual needs.

Best practices suggest that specific rehabilitative programs should be matched to an individual's unique needs. To provide programs according to best practices, DCYF should:

• Use the results of validated assessments to match rehabilitative programs to the individual needs of young people.
• Provide programs at the appropriate dosage for the right duration to ensure effectiveness.
• Reassess young people to adjust programming as needed.

DCYF should collect and use accurate, reliable, and consistent data.

DCYF should start by ensuring it has clear policies and procedures for data collection and entry. It should also implement quality assurance processes, so the data collected is accurate and comparable between facilities.

Specific types of data include:

• Programming data. This should include the frequency of program attendance, the dosage of program, and the duration of program.
• Room confinement and isolation (RCI) data. This should allow DCYF to compare RCI usage across facilities to evaluate whether it is meeting the legislative intent to reduce the use of RCI in Washington.
• Staff training data as described in recommendation 3.