Our Children’s Potential

At a recent conference, judges from across the state were treated to a first-rate performance by the Fort Wayne Voices of Unity Youth Choir. The remarkable poise and professional sound of the young choir led the judges to a standing ovation.
The majority of this special edition of Indiana Court Times focuses on children in [...]

Indiana Juvenile Case Data

For over thirty-eight years, Indiana’s courts have diligently reported information about their caseloads, their finances, and the services they provide, such as probation, guardian ad litem advocates, and court interpreters. The following tables comprise state-wide juvenile data compiled from detailed reports filed by every court in the state and published in an annual Judicial [...]

CHINS UP: New tools to measure milestones in child welfare cases

In dependency cases, “a child’s sense of time is extremely important.” Allen Superior Court, Family Relations Division, Judge Charles Pratt emphasized this in a recent training on the new CHINS (Child in Need of Services) Timeliness Measures. Juvenile judges must be conscious of how court performance, including delays, affects children in their [...]

Indiana Criminal Justice Institute Receives Report on Juvenile Disproportionate Minority Contact

The following is excerpted from the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of a report submitted to the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute by Chrystal A. Garcia, PhD and G. Roger Jarjoura, PhD, Associate Professors of Criminal Justice, Law and Public Safety, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and Kathy Lisby, Senior Policy Analyst, Center [...]

Permanency Roundtables in Juvenile Delinquency Cases

A Permanency Roundtable is an intervention designed to facilitate the permanency planning process for youth placed out-of-home by identifying solutions to permanency obstacles.
The Permanency Roundtable Model was developed by Casey Family Programs to assist child welfare agencies expedite permanency for youth in care. In 2012, Indiana passed legislation requiring permanency roundtables in both children [...]

JDAI: Indiana’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative

The vision of the Annie E. Casey Foundation states: “All youth involved in the juvenile justice system have opportunities to develop into healthy, productive adults.” Indiana supports this vision and has chosen the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), designed by the Foundation, as the method by which Indiana communities can implement meaningful juvenile justice [...]

Casey Family Programs: 2020 Strategy

Since 2007, Casey Family Programs has had the privilege to work in close partnership with the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS). To date, our efforts with DCS have supported several key initiatives, including:

internal management development
father engagement
permanency roundtables (internal case consultations to identify innovative strategies to promote child permanency attainment)
improvements in data analysis capacity
identification and [...]

Seventeenth Annual GAL/CASA Conference

The State Office of GAL/CASA held the Seventeenth Annual Indiana State GAL/CASA Conference, entitled “Times of Change” on September 14 at the Wyndham West Hotel in Indianapolis. Over six hundred CASA volunteers, directors and program staff participated in the conference. The keynote speaker, Charlie Appelstein, an author, spoke on the topic, “No Such [...]

Juvenile Mental Health Screening, Assessment & Treatment

The Indiana Juvenile Mental Health Screening, Assessment, and Treatment Project (Project) is aimed at early assessment of mental health issues facing children who enter juvenile detention. It is already helping children access needed services.
Benefits Observed by Detention Centers and Courts
Some of the recognized benefits of the Project include:

a better understanding of the youth on the [...]

Education Abroad: Indiana Court of Appeals Judges Travel to Turkey

“The world is globalizing and law is universalizing.” So begins a letter from the Justice Academy of Turkey to selected American judges who were invited to Turkey in June to exchange knowledge with Turkish judges and prosecutors in training.
Some urgency attended the message. Turkey has been reforming its judicial system for a decade, not least [...]

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