JCP Reassessment 1.0:

Local and Technical Decision Guidelines

and Frequently Asked Questions

 

The JCP Reassessment can be used by juvenile justice agencies as an instrument to determine a youth’s risk to re-offend. This tool supplements the JCP Screen/Assessment (also a tool that determines youth’s risk to offend) by taking into account how supervision, treatment, and the youth’s response to supervision and treatment may impact his or her current behavior.  The risk and protective indicators on the Reassessment parallel those on the Screen/Assessment; therefore, the general guideline is to base a Reassessment off of the Screen/Assessment.  However, if your agency is doing regular Interim Reviews, you can base the Reassessment off of the Interim Review[1].

 

 

Local Decisions & Actions

 

v     Counties need to make the JCP Reassessment one of their default assessment options so that users will see “JCP Reassessment” when they select “assessments” for a youth

 

v     The Reassessment instrument was designed to be somewhat flexible in its use. This flexibility, however, means that county programs must first make several decisions before having their staff implement and use the Reassessment.  These decisions (made by your Juvenile Director) should include:

 

q       How often and when a Reassessment should be conducted by your agency

q       Which of the two categories of risk levels the department wishes to use[2] (options are defined in the table below)

 

Default Scoring

Alternative Scoring

Low Risk

4 or fewer risks

Low Risk

5 or fewer risks

Medium-Low Risk

5-8 risks

Medium Risk

6-13 risks

Medium-High Risk

9-13 risks

High Risk

14+ risks

High Risk

14+ risks

 

 

 

q       What constitutes “technical terms of probation/supervision” must be defined by your agency (item 16.1); see FAQ’s page 3.

q       Your agency must decide how it will define “sanctions” (item 17.1)

q       Your agency must decide how it will define skill development activities (item 18.1).

q       Your agency must decide what to include as treatment options (18.2)

q       NOTE: Examples of Pilot County Definitions to 17.1, 18.1, and 18.2 are below.

 

 

Examples of Pilot County Definitions

 

County 1

 

Accountability Sanction: community services, restitution, Project Payback work crew, Forest Camp, Day Reporting Center, restorative justice interventions (mediation, group conferencing) 

 

Skill Development: Save Our Youth Program (Conflict Resolution), Anger Management, Gender Specific skill-building groups, employment training program, Day Reporting Center, etc.

 

Treatment: Drug and Alcohol Inpatient/Outpatient, MST, SRTP (Secure Residential Treatment Program for sex offenders), etc.

 

 

County 2

 

Accountability Sanction: community services, restitution, house arrest, fines/fees

 

Skill Development: Anger Management, Gender Specific skill-building groups, Cognitive Restructuring  
 

Treatment: Drug and Alcohol Inpatient/Outpatient, DBT, Mental Health Inpatient/ Outpatient, Juvenile Risk Reduction Treatment program (sex offender outpatient)  

 

County 3

 

Accountability Sanction:  Community service work crews, restitution, theft talk, detention


Skill Development:  Girl's group, Young Men's Work, Life skills groups


Treatment:  Outpatient and inpatient D & A treatment, Mental health counseling,
Integrated Treatment Court

 

Accessing the Reassessment (Quick Steps)

 

1.             Search for a youth or work from your caseload

2.             Bring up available assessments

a.       Select “JCP Reassessment”

b.      Select a completed assessment to “Build and Base On”

3.             Select “Build and Base On” (see “Build and Base Assessment on a Previous Assessment” from JJIS)

4.             Link to an Assessment (see “Link Assessments to Prior Assessments” from JJIS)

5.             Review/Update the original Assessment

6.             Complete the Reassessment addendum

Frequently Asked Questions:

 

Q:  How does the Reassessment differ from the Interim Review?

A:   The primary difference is that the Interim Review was designed to be an evaluation measure with the purpose of looking at changes in dynamic risk indicators, whereas the Reassessment is designed to serve as a risk to re-offend tool (that is, to provide a score/measure of a youth’s risk to offend, which provides a guideline for the appropriate level of supervision a youth may need).

 

Q:  When should the Reassessment be used?

A:  The use of the Reassessment will be a local decision, however appropriate uses of the Reassessment include (1) when the youth has a new referral, (2) when the youth has completed most of the case plan objectives, and/or (3) if your local policy is to require a Reassessment at specified time periods (i.e., every 4 or 6 months).

 

Q:  How should the Reassessment be used?

A:  The Reassessment is designed to be used to (1) determine on-going level of supervision, and (2) to monitor and update the case/service plan.

 

Q:  How do I know which assessment for a youth to use (build and base on) if there are multiple assessments for the youth already?

A:  As a general rule, select the most recent one unless it was completed within the past month.  If the most recent prior assessment was less than 30 days ago, it may be more appropriate to select an earlier assessment.  However you should check with your local department policy. Note: If another county completed the assessment immediately prior to this assessment, and your department’s policy is to use only in-county assessments, you should select the most recent in-county assessment.

 

Q:  What is meant by “technical terms of probation?”

A:  Technical terms of probation can be defined as: following parental rules, paying probation fees, attending school, attending treatment groups, and status offenses (curfew, truancy, running away).

 

Q:  How do I find the youth’s criminal referral history?

A:  JJIS will automatically provide you with the youth’s most serious crime since their last assessment.

 

Q:  I’m working on the Reassessment, but notice there is no subsequent referral for the youth.  What happened?

A:  First, you should check to make sure you appropriately linked the Reassessment to a prior assessment.  If you did, and the subsequent referral section is blank, then there is no subsequent referral for the youth.

 

 

 

 

The JCP Reassessment is scheduled for statewide implementation on October 24, 2005

 
 

 

 



[1] Because not all risk indicators on the Screen/Assessment are asked on the Interim Review; you should fill in responses to these indicators when completing the Reassessment in order to get an accurate measure of risk to re-offend.

[2] Juvenile departments should notify JJIS which category of risk level it will use.  The Risk Steering Committee and the evaluators have determined that there are a significant number of youth in the medium low risk group (5 to 8 risk indicators) who re-offend (usually with minor offenses), and are recommending that counties use the 4-level scoring system as the default for those who want to target this group