NCCD and You

December 2, 2013 | Erin Hanusa, Senior Communications Manager, NCCD

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At the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, collaboration is part of the backbone of our work. For over one hundred years, we have sought to translate research to practice: to find out what works in human services and to use that knowledge to improve lives. Whether we are facilitating focus groups on how a city can better serve its survivors of violence; helping a county to develop an evidence-based child welfare system; or working across a state to improve adult protective services, collaboration is always a common thread.

At the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, collaboration is part of the backbone of our work. For over one hundred years, we have sought to translate research to practice: to find out what works in human services and to use that knowledge to improve lives. Whether we are facilitating focus groups on how a city can better serve its survivors of violence; helping a county to develop an evidence-based child welfare system; or working across a state to improve adult protective services, collaboration is always a common thread. The positive impact NCCD seeks to create in child welfare, the adult and juvenile justice systems, education, and the adult protection system would be impossible without the valuable partnerships we form with practitioners, advocates, community organizations, researchers, funders, the media, and more—the list goes on, and we all have a role to play.

2013 has been a particularly fruitful year of collaboration at NCCD. In the justice arena, under a grant from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, we completed an evaluation of juvenile risk assessments, whose findings will help jurisdictions across the country choose and use valid risk assessments in juvenile justice settings, potentially impacting the lives of tens of thousands of young people. As part of a cooperative agreement with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, we administered the PREA Resource Center with the goal of eliminating sexual abuse in confinement and to assist state and local jurisdictions with implementation of the Department of Justice’s national PREA standards.

In child welfare, we have expanded our work to new jurisdictions in the United States and to Singapore. NCCD’s Children’s Research Center works with child-serving agencies in these and other locations to improve direct practice and organizational operations with the use of evidence-based assessments, family-centered engagement strategies, and implementation science. These partnerships improve outcomes for thousands of children engaged in the child welfare systems across the globe.

Finally, we began a groundbreaking statewide adult protective services (APS) project in Texas. We have worked closely with Texas APS staff to implement evidence-based assessments to improve outcomes for vulnerable and elderly adults. You can read more about this work here.

These projects are only a few of the exciting collaborations we’ve embarked upon this year, and we look forward to many more. As we come to the end of 2013, we are grateful for the continual involvement and invaluable support of people like you. We invite you to learn more about our work and how you can become involved by watching this new video from the Giving Library, produced by the Arnold Foundation. Thank you for being part of NCCD’s community, and be sure to keep up to date on new projects and publications in 2014 by joining us on Twitter or Facebook.

Our bloggers this month (list and links will be updated as posts go live):

Celsa Snead, Executive Director, The Mentoring Center: The Importance of Including Youth Voices

Linda McFarlane, Deputy Executive Director, Just Detention International: Celebrating 10 Years of the Prison Rape Elimination Act

Cara Langley, Wesley Mission (Lead Agency) Brighter Futures practice specialist, Sydney Metropolitan West area of New South Wales: “I think we’re having conversations that we didn’t have before.”—On Structured Decision Making® (SDM) implementation in the voluntary nongovernment early intervention sector of New South Wales with vulnerable at-risk children and their families

Erin J. Maher, Director of Program Evaluation, Casey Family Programs: Early Intervention in Child Welfare Can Make a Difference

Mykel Selph, The Moss Group, Inc.: Integrating LGBTQI Policy Into the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center

Erin Hanusa is the Senior Communications Manager at NCCD.