The Yolo County Board of Supervisors has agreed to enter into a contract with El Dorado County for Secure Youth Treatment Facility services.
In 2020, Senate Bill 823 ended placement of justice system-involved youth in state facilities, or the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), and realigned the responsibility to provide rehabilitative services for this population to counties.
Each county was tasked with developing a plan for rehabilitative treatment for those youth committed to Secure Youth Treatment Facilities. Youth assigned to these facilities are offenders who require long-term treatment and custodial care who could not have their needs addressed through intensive community-based services.
"They're serious juvenile offenders," explained Chief Probation Officer Dan Fruchtenicht. "In order to qualify for secure track placement, you have to be at least 14 years of age and have been charged with a 707(b) offense. These offenses are the most serious to include murder, rape, carjacking and kidnapping."
Since 2015, only eight youths from Yolo County have been court-ordered to the Department of Juvenile Justice.
"Historically we are not a high utilizer of DJJ services," Fruchtenicht said. "We anticipate those trends will continue and we will be a low utilizer of this service."
The average length of stay for Yolo County youth previously committed to DJJ was 2.4 years with the longest stay being almost six.
"That contrasts with the non-realigned population of our traditional in-custody youth at the juvenile hall where the average length of stay is 22 days so as you can see there are very different needs with length of stay and seriousness of charges," Fruchtenicht emphasized. "Secure track placements are designed for long-term rehabilitative treatment. Juvenile halls tend to be set up for short-term stabilization."
Due to the low population of youth that have been historically court-ordered to secure track placements, in addition to high costs, Yolo County spent several years looking at and touring programs in other countries to contract out for services.
"I look at it as a light switch analogy with contracting out, we have the option, when services are needed, of flipping on the light switch and when the services are not needed turning it off," Fruchtenicht explained. "Whereas if we run our own programming we would have to spin up programming and services, sign multi-year contracts with CBOs and there could be time periods that we don't have youth that need those services."
After touring El Dorado County, staff decided their program would be the best fit due to similar philosophies between the counties. El Dorado County also contracts with other small counties for Secure Youth Treatment Facility services.
"This allows our youth to be placed with other small county youth that likely have similar sophistication levels," said Supervising Probation Officer Christina Tranfaglia.
El Dorado County's program provides robust, individualized services, as well as an on-site mental health staff as part of its daily treatment and care team. Their close proximity also ensures easy transportation for family members and friends and easy preparation for seamless reentry.
"We will still be involved in the youths' lives," Fruchtenicht said. "Probation officers will be going up regularly in-person to meet with them."
It also offers therapeutic services, post-secondary and vocational education, independent living skills, a behavioral support program and an array of enhanced enrichment activities.
The anticipated cost of contracting out would be approximately $475 per day per youth which equates to about $175,000 per year per youth. However, this cost could fluctuate based on needs.
To date, $2.4 million has been provided by the state for the court-ordered secure track program commitments. Another $1 million is expected.
Fruchtenicht noted that if there are no youth in the program, there will be no charge.
"I'm reasonably convinced this is the best option for the youth in question here and I'm excited for their opportunity should they get to go to El Dorado County and that program," said Supervisor Mary Sandy.
The board unanimously approved entering into contract negotiations with El Dorado County. The item will return to the board at a later date for final contract approval.
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