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About Us
Partnerships for Restorative Outcomes, Growth, Redemption,
and Enhancement of Social Skills
The PROGRESS program is a partnership between the Youth Services Agency (YSA) of Bucks County and the Bucks County Juvenile Probation department (JPO) that aims to promote sound restorative juvenile justice practices. PA’s Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) philosophy mandates that Juvenile Court dispositions ensure equal consideration be given to the restoration of the victim, community, and the juvenile while protecting the community from further acts of delinquency. The PROGRESS program seeks to accomplish these outcomes by working closely with the Juvenile Court and by encouraging the involvement of community residents, local agencies and institutions, and private sector representatives.
History of Balanced And Restorative Justice (BARJ)
The BARJ philosophy was adopted in PA in 1996 when the Juvenile Act – the law governing juvenile offenders – was changed. The new law required that juveniles be held accountable for their actions by restoring the victim and the community to their pre-crime status. Compensating the victims for their losses (restitution), allowing victims the opportunity to have a presence at the proceedings and to have their concerns heard (victim impact statements) is now the practice in Juvenile Courts. Community service work (CSW) projects were are also a way for the offender to make the community whole and provide the offender with an opportunity to learn skills.
Community protection is accomplished by removing violent juvenile offenders from the community, and by providing increased surveillance to those under supervision in the community. The use of intermediate sanctions, along with greater involvement of offenders into structured BARJ activities such as CSW projects has proven to be helpful tools for the juvenile justice system (JJS) in meeting this goal.
Competency development, however, has provided more of a challenge for the JJS. Moving from the medical model to a restorative justice model left many professionals in the field unsure what constituted competency development. After several years of input and discussion by juvenile justice experts in PA, the National Center for Juvenile Justice suggested the following in 2005:
“After examining the research, we settled on the following definition – competency development is the process by which juvenile offenders acquire the knowledge and skills that make it possible for them to become productive, connected, and law abiding members of their communities and selected five (5) core competency domains – areas in which one could reasonably expect young people in trouble with the law to build and demonstrate competencies depending on their age and state of development. These domains are:
- Pro-social skills
- Moral reasoning skills
- Academic skills
- Workforce development skills
- Independent living skills”
After the release of this White Paper, the BARJ Committee of the Bucks County Juvenile Probation office was tasked with the development of a curriculum that we felt should be offered in each domain. JPO then partnered with YSA to help develop an implementation strategy and program that will allow the Court to offer these competency development activities to juveniles under its supervision. What evolved from this joint effort was the PROGRESS program, which is now available to juvenile offenders throughout Bucks County.
Torbet, P. and Thomas, D. (2005) Advancing Competency Development: A White Paper for Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice. P.3.
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