The Maryland Coalition of Families for Children's Mental Health noted the lack of family voices in the area of juvenile justice reform in Maryland and responded by developing a project designed to reach families with children in the juvenile justice system and learn from their experiences.

“Listening and Learning From Families in Juvenile Justice"  was launched in Summer 2000 and consisted of nine focus groups conducted around the state for families. The Coalition provided grants to local organizations to organize a focus group in their area. To ensure consistency, Coalition staff facilitated each group and used the same question format each time. Groups were conducted in rural, urban and suburban areas of the state and included a mixture of socio-economic, racial and ethnic groups. A total of 95 family members participated in the focus groups. Collectively, the 95 family members were caring for 86 children in the juvenile justice system. Half of the 86 children committed 3 or more offenses. Although the groups were diverse in many ways the issues and concerns that family members raised were very consistent regardless of the community. 

This report summarizes the issues and concerns of families and concludes with 14 recommendations based on input from family members.

The complete report is available on this web site in PDF format by clicking HERE. 
In order to read this format, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader.  If you do not have this free software, you can download it from Adobe's site by clicking HERE.

If you prefer to have this report in hard copy, please send us an email with your address and we will mail a copy to you.