Skip to main content

Audience: Prevention Programs

Supporting Tribal Youth Attendance Achievement

Written by Laura Smith on .

This publication serves as a primer to assist with understanding issues of chronic absenteeism, truancy, prevention, and intervention processes. It addresses historic education policy and contemporary approaches utilized by Tribal communities to prevent and address truancy among Tribal youth and highlights helpful community-based approaches to support delinquency prevention program development. This publication will direct readers to existing resources and information that may support new or developing truancy prevention programs.

Additionally, it includes strategic planning activities to support individual consideration or team development of a truancy prevention program.

Developed by the Tribal Youth Justice Resource Center.

Enhancing Tribal Juvenile Justice with Healing-Centered Systems Change- Trauma Expert Panel

Written by Laura Smith on .

A panel presented at the 2021 OJJDP Tribal Youth Virtual National Conference. Research suggests that Native American youth are at increased risk of trauma, depression, and PTSD as a result of grief and exposure to violence which can lead to relationship problems, drug and alcohol abuse, violent behavior, suicide and depression, problems in school, and bullying and victimization. National Native Children’s Trauma Center provides training in promising practices as well as technical assistance in healing-centered systems change across all tribal child-serving systems, including schools, behavioral health providers, child welfare agencies, and juvenile justice systems. The National Native Children’s Trauma Center also assists in the cultural adaptation of promising practices and develops products and practices intended for use in Native communities. This panel provided an opportunity for attendees to hear more about their work and to ask questions that may have been generated throughout the conference.

Creativity & Innovation in the Face of COVID-19: Maskiizibii Oshki Gabeshiwin 2020Virtual Youth Conference

Written by Andrea Dickerson on .

A session presented at the 2021 OJJDP Tribal Youth National Conference (Session E1). This session presented the journey undertaken in 2020 to develop, plan, and implement a virtual peer to peer mentoring and experiential youth leadership conference that encompassed poetry, photography, music, and art for middle and high school students during a pandemic. The session provided a discussion about peer to peer mentoring and cultural arts approaches that promote healing, resilience, and prevent or reduce delinquent behavior.

Two Boys on Horseback

Telling Our Story Through Evaluation

Written by Andrea Dickerson on .

A session presented at the 2021 OJJDP Tribal Youth Virtual National Conference. In this session participants surveyed an example of an evaluation process from data collection through data analysis and provided with an example of how to present evaluation findings to the community.

Innovative Strategies- Tribal Youth Courts and Peer-Led Processes

Written by Andrea Dickerson on .

A session presented at the 2021 OJJDP Tribal Youth Virtual National Conference. Youth/Peer courts provide strategies for diversion, peer engagement, and youth led processes. In this session participants learned how Tribal youth and peer courts offer a unique opportunity for communities to support youth accountability and implement proactive and prosocial solutions by engaging youth who have minor or first-time infractions.

Panel: Tribal State Relations to Support Juvenile Justice Improvements

Written by Andrea Dickerson on .

A dialogue presented at the 2021 OJJDP Tribal Youth Virtual National Conference (Session C1) that focused on establishing and strengthening Tribal and State partnerships, discussed the cultivation of collaborative relationships between Tribal and State juvenile justice stakeholders and provided insight into the experiences of several community members and their work toward solution-focused responses to support Tribal youth. The session highlighted some practical steps taken by Tribal community juvenile justice and prevention stakeholders to establish and engage in a Tribal task force to support the identification of processes and protocols to coordinate with local State juvenile justice leaders. These efforts have led to improved communication regarding Tribal youth resources and diversion opportunities, the shared review of local Tribal juvenile justice data, and development of strategies to support coordinated referral processes for Tribal youth who make contact with the State juvenile justice system.

Digital Smoke Signals: Using Technology as a Tool for Engagement

Written by Andrea Dickerson on .

A session presented at the 2021 OJJDP Tribal Youth Virtual National Conference (Session B1). Connection with youth is integral to enhancing both safety and accountability for individual youth and communities as a whole. There is a growing need for digital engagement to enhance Tribal Youth Program and Juvenile Healing to Wellness Court efforts, especially in times that require social distancing. This session focused on how communities can engage with youth through a variety of digital channels to ensure that tribal youth programs have the capacity to provide avenues for innovative programming. The session included grantee community examples that exhibit ways in which digital engagement broadens access to services. A variety of digital platforms and strategies for virtual interactions that allow for prevention and intervention to transcend challenges of space and time are explored.