Cross Over Youth Program

The AB129 Pilot Project/241.1 Multidisciplinary Team

As part of the Cross-Over Youth Project, Learning Rights was asked to participate in the AB129 pilot program sponsored by the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court system.  The goal of the pilot is to prevent “at-risk youth” in the foster care system from “crossing over” to the delinquency system by offering a multidisciplinary approach to evaluating their needs.  A multidisciplinary team (“MDT”) including representatives from the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services (“DCFS”), the Probation Department, and the Department of Mental Health, a placement specialist from the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services, and an educational specialist from Learning Rights Law Center was established to evaluate the needs of youth referred to the program, make recommendations regarding placement and services deemed appropriate for the youth, and monitor the implementation of the recommendations. 

As a member of the MDT, Learning Rights evaluates the educational history of youth referred to the program and creates a report detailing the youth’s education history, suspected educational needs, and potential concerns regarding the youth’s current educational placement and services.  Learning Rights then makes recommendations for improvement and monitors implementation of the recommendations by providing technical assistance to social workers, probation officers, and education consultants hired by DCFS.

The AB129 pilot program began accepting referrals in May of 2007.  Since then some preliminary statistics have been gathered for 25 youth receiving services from the MDT and a control group of 25 youth not receiving services from the MDT.  This data suggests that basic educational facts necessary to ensure a youth is receiving appropriate educational services are not being gathered for at-risk foster youth not involved in the pilot program. 

For example, 80% of the control group youth did not have an education rights holder identified.  When a youth’s parents are not involved in his or her life, an education rights holder must be identified to make educational decisions for the youth.  These decisions include requesting and consenting to educational assessments and changes in placement.  Only 10% of youth involved in the pilot did not have an education rights holder identified. 

Additionally, over 60% of the youth involved in the pilot were identified as having irregular school changes.  This includes changes that occur at irregular times during the school year for either behavior concerns or placement transfers.  This does not include changes that occur at the end of the school year for reasons such as graduating from middle or elementary school.  Despite the age and background similarities of the control group and the youth involved in the pilot, only 25% of the control group youth were identified as having irregular school changes.  This suggests not that they actually had fewer irregular school changes, but that fewer changes were identified for them, meaning their educational history was not evaluated as thoroughly.

Finally, while nearly 50% of the youth involved in the pilot were identified as eligible for special education services, only 30% of youth not involved in the pilot were identified as eligible for special education services.  Again, this tends to suggest not that fewer youth were actually eligible for special education, but that fewer youth were identified by the foster care system as eligible, meaning, again, that their educational history was not evaluated as thoroughly.  

These statistics show that without the presence of Learning Rights on the MDT, the educational needs of this population would continue to be overlooked. 

Although data from the pilot program is still being collected, to date, no youth involved in the pilot program have “crossed-over” from the dependency system to the delinquency system.

Future of the Program 

The pilot program has been extended to continue for another year.  Previous extensions of the pilot have been for 6 months at a time, so this extension seems to indicate a more permanent intention for the program.  Judge Nash, Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Courts continues to express a desire to take the program county wide.  However, this is not likely to occur until the protocol for the 241.1 MDT is more solidly defined.  Currently, components continue to be added as more needs are discovered.  For example, since the initial phases of the pilot, a DCFS placement specialist has been added to the MDT and the DCFS education consultants have been made available to assist social workers in implementing our recommendations.  Currently, the MDT is staffed by the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services, the Department of Probation, the Department of Mental Health, and Learning Rights.