Project S.T.A.R.

Success Through Achieving Reintegration

The Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority was awarded an OJJDP FY2007 High-Risk Youth Offender Re-Entry grant on September 1, 2007. Project S.T.A.R. was developed to create a seamless evidence-based system throughout the entire length of supervision for the juvenile.

The main goal of Project S.T.A.R. is to reduce recidivism and enhance public safety. This will be accomplished by increasing the quality of evidence-based programming within the Juvenile Correctional Facilities, the Community Reintegration Facility and the communities; developing and enhancing services that promote healthy family units for the juveniles leaving the correctional facilities; promoting successful reintegration from the juvenile correctional facility to the community; and ensuring program sustainability within the local treatment judicial districts and throughout the state of Kansas. In addition, the project will seek to reduce the supervision levels of the juveniles who have demonstrated success through their behavior.

Project S.T.A.R. will serve approximately 200 moderate to high risk males, age 12 to 22, who have been sentenced to a juvenile correctional facility for a period of at least six months with six months aftercare returning to a pilot site community. The design for Project S.T.A.R. requires lower case loads, reintegration planning beginning upon entrance into the juvenile correctional facility using a team approach with input from all parties, and evidence based practices throughout a seamless system using a step-down approach from the correctional facility to the community.

To assist in the smooth transition back into the community, Project S.T.A.R. will develop a Community Reintegration Facility which will provide services to the juvenile for a period up to 90 days. The purpose of this facility will allow the juveniles opportunities to transition from a highly structured Juvenile Correctional Facility back into the community. The Community Reentry Facility will also provide opportunities to promote reunification through fostering healthy family units, prosocial employment and leisure activities, and prosocial peer networks. JJA has selected one Community Reentry Facility: the Sedgwick County Youth Program (SCYP). This site was chosen due to its convenient location for all three districts acting as Reentry Pilot Sites. JJA is exploring the option of selecting two additional Community Reentry Facilities, to be fully operational in 2009.

The final phase of the program will be the Community Reentry Officers. The Community Reentry Officers will provide quality case management services through actively seeking community-based services to meet the needs of the juveniles and to foster successful bonds to the community. In addition, these officers will provide services (in the form of groups) to the youth and their families to ensure that the needs of the youth and families are being met to reduce the risk of reoffending.

There are currently three (3) Community Reentry Pilot Sites: the 10th Judicial District (Johnson County), the 18th Judicial District (Sedgwick County) and the 25th Judicial District (Scott, Wichita, Greeley, Hamilton, Kearny and Finney Counties). Each district employs a Community Reentry Officer specifically tasked in working with the Project S.T.A.R. youth.

To learn more about Project S.T.A.R., please contact Megan Milner, Operations Manager at mmilner@jja.ks.gov or 785-296-3433.