“It doesn’t matter who the youth is, one of the things that we can do is that when they come through these doors they can be a kid again.”

That’s the goal for Pam Jones, Director of King County’s Juvenile Division, who oversees the operation of the Juvenile Detention Center at 12th Avenue and East Alder Street in Seattle.

Jones, who has been with King County for over 30 years, has played a key role in the County’s work to bring down the number of youth in detention. In the late-1990s, the average daily population was 198, peaking at times at well over 200. The existing facility can house up to 212 youth.

Over the last two decades, the County’s criminal justice agencies and community partners have worked together to reduce the number of youth in detention, with the average daily population falling to 51 in 2016.

This reduction results from a change in thinking that includes Restorative Justice and Trauma-Informed Practices, and recognizing that the brain is not fully developed in adolescents. New programs, including releasing qualified youth to an ”Alternative to Secure Detention” program, reducing the number of filings on youth made by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, offering a diversion program to young people who are arrested due to family domestic violence incidents, and providing alternatives to youth arrested on warrants who miss court dates or other appearance requirements.

“It’s a combination of systems coming together and agencies collaborating to continue to chip at those numbers and continue to reduce the population,” Jones said.

Pam works with staff to create a welcoming space for programs and services within the new facility.

A new Children and Family Justice Center, which was approved by King County voters in 2012, is scheduled to open in 2020, and will replace the aging Youth Services Center, which houses the existing Juvenile Detention Center and Juvenile Court.

The new facility will replace the current juvenile courthouse, which opened in 1972, and replace the existing detention center with a new building able to accommodate up to 112 youth, a reduction from the 212 beds available today.

It will also provide much needed space for programs and services.

“The current building has zero program space for youth,” Jones said. “We have a library and a gym; we don’t have any space that’s separate where the community can come in and do hands-on programming except for empty living halls that we have repurposed because the population has gone down. So when we want to do something fun and innovative with youth we are now just taking them from one living hall to another.”

The new building will include a “program suite” which houses a spiritual center, the gym, two multipurpose rooms and the library.

“Utilizing trauma-informed care design, we’re creating additional space in the program suite for community providers to use. The benefit as I see it for the youth is to feel like they’re going somewhere which makes them feel like, one, they’re a kid, and two, it’s not the same old ‘I’m just moving from one unit to another unit.’”

The goal is to help young people who are there feel supported, respected and like kids again.

All of which facilitates Jones’ goal of making the building one that helps the young people who are there feel supported, respected and like kids again.

“A lot of youth, they’re helping support the family; they’re the man of the house or the female of the house, or they take care of their siblings,” Jones said of the youth at the facility. “I just want them to come in and not have those responsibilities and not feel that we’re creating a space that’s going to create more harm for them, but we’re creating a space that’s going to make them feel better about themselves and the services that we’ll provide.”

Shared from the DCHS Touching Base Newsletter 

King, Pierce and Spokane counties have joined together with A Way Home Washington to accelerate local efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness.

In Washington state, more than 13,000 people between the ages of 12 and 24 lack a safe, stable place to call home. The recent King County point-in-time count, released by All Home on May 31, 2017, counted a total of 1,498 unaccompanied youth and young adults homeless (up to age 25) in King County on January 27, 2017.

Called the 100-Day Challenge, each of the three regions formed teams to identify specific goals they will work to achieve over a period of 100 days. The King County 100-Day Challenge team will focus on 1) accelerating housing placements for young people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, and 2) reducing the number of unsheltered young people in the community on the Coordinated Entry for All (CEA) list. The challenge officially started on April 20.

The King County team is hard at work problem solving barriers to housing placements for youth. One of the problems they have identified is that transitional housing placements are taking too much time, leaving housing beds unoccupied. Housing program staff and CEA staff are working together to improve their protocols and collaboration so that young people are housed more quickly and easily.

The Schultz Family Foundation and the Raikes Foundation, two local philanthropic leaders active in and committed to addressing youth homelessness, are providing financial support for the Challenge. Rapid Results Institute (RRI) is providing coaching and support to the teams from all three regions, and facilitated a two-day workshop in April to launch the 100-Day Challenge. RRI’s past challenges around veteran and youth homelessness have shown that the limited timeframe of 100 days provides the urgency needed to identify, innovate and fuel effective approaches for communities.

Communities in the Pierce County region will use the 100 days to significantly and sustainably reduce the number of youth/young adults experiencing homelessness, with a focus on diverting young people from the criminal justice system and preventing homelessness. Spokane’s Challenge Team will work to ensure youth and young adults who have been involved with systems such as foster care, treatment facilities and juvenile justice, exit to a safe place to live and do not fall into homelessness.

The 100-Day Challenges are part of a growing national movement to prevent and end youth homelessness in America. In Austin, Cleveland and Los Angeles, similar challenges helped house 413 young people in just 100 days. A Way Home Washington has created a hashtag, #WAChallengeAccepted, and is providing updates on Twitter, Facebook and the A Way Home Washington website.

To learn more about what DCHS is doing in our community, read the most recent issue of the Touching Base Newsletter (on SharePoint).

This June, the Northshore Public Health Center will move from its current location of 25 years in south Bothell to a new location in Kirkland. The new location at Totem Lake offers better access for clients and closer proximity to key health care partners, particularly Evergreen Medical Center. The new site’s services – Maternity Support Services, WIC (Women Infants and Children), enrollment into health insurance, Orca Lift and other services – will be adjacent to a Metro transit center. The move is the final phase in the sale of the Northshore facility. Selling Northshore was the preferred choice in a study required by a Council Proviso, with the funds helping to improve the Public Health Fund balance.

The final day of services at the old site will likely be Wednesday, June 7, and will be closed on June 8, 9 and 12th to prepare for the move to the Totem Lake area. The anticipated day for opening to the public at the new site is Tuesday, June 13.

For updates and more information visit the Northshore Public Health Center webpage here or contact the center directly at 206-263-2680.