Juvenile Justice Community-Based Programs and Partnerships: Possibilities for Collaboration and Community

Community-based programs and partnerships are essential to holistically serving youth and effectively supporting staff in juvenile justice facilities. Such programs and partnerships can support positive facility learning spaces, use local resources and services to enhance youth outcomes, support staff educating and caring for youth, and provide resources to youth transitioning back into their communities. Using a reflective lens, this manuscript explores the development of a series of podcast-style discussions featuring juvenile justice facilities (JJF) and their self-identified community partners. The podcast-style discussions highlight a variety of juvenile facilities and their community partners in an accessible way that shows how their partnerships strengthen the facility learning spaces. Each episode showcases considerations and success stories related to forming and maintaining community partnerships, providing valuable insights for other facilities. The discussions highlight the demonstrated impacts that such partnerships have within JJFs, particularly in creating connections, sharing resources, improving youth outcomes, innovating approaches, and sustaining engagement. This manuscript highlights a novel approach of using a podcast-style discussion format to cultivate a sense of possibility for those involved in delivering community-based programs and partnerships in JJFs, and showing how those programs can evolve to meet the needs of justice-involved youth, juvenile justice staff, researchers, readers, current and prospective partners, and overall safety and engagement efforts.