The Nebraska Court Improvement Project Plan 2020 Regional Conferences for Fall

The Nebraska Court Improvement Project Plan 2020 Regional Conferences for Fall

This year’s series of Regional Conferences will take place one day each in Chadron, Ogallala, Grand Island and Lincoln over the dates of September 28 to October 2, 2020. The dates and order of CIP travel is tentative at this time and will be based on availability of meeting facilities and local area Directed Health Measures.

The theme is “Seeing the Youth, Action Through Perceived Options” with a program presented by Lisa Thurau, Executive Director of Strategies for Youth. The conference will also include presentations by psychologists, law enforcement and education professionals from the state and each local area. We want youth to learn from their experiences, and prevent young people from moving deeper into systems, while also having their needs met. Stakeholders can expect to understand and learn to identify underlying issues related to trauma and adolescent development, to meet youth where they are, and build relationships for positive outcomes.

Strategies for Youth is a non-profit organization, advocating for youth in juvenile justice and providing evidenced-based training for law enforcement for interacting with youth. They describe themselves on StrategiesForYouth.org as follows: “Strategies for Youth actively engages police, youth, and youth-serving community-based organizations in an interdisciplinary approach to addressing several problems: the proliferation of contentious encounters between police and youth, unnecessary arrests of youth for minor offenses, and disproportionate police contact with youth of color.”

The CIP team will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation both statewide and locally as it pertains to conducting the conferences, while also maintaining social distancing and public health. Should the situations not improve, the CIP team is prepared to hold the conferences virtually.