Juvenile Protective Association (JPA)

JPA's primary goal is to help children under extreme stress learn to feel and function better so they can achieve personal and academic goals in the future, graduate from school on time and ready for the next stage of their lives, and break the grip of poverty.

According to the Child Mind Institute, ongoing exposure to neglect, abuse, homelessness or violence causes learning and behavior problems in children. Those as young as PreK show signs of extreme stress and anxiety, having experienced or witnessed incidents of violence. The lack of social services in these neighborhoods, including therapy, that help children deal with toxic stress and trauma, contributes not only to a loss of human potential, but also to major physical health problems in adulthood (Norman et al, 2012).

When children have significant emotional needs, behavior problems, and relationship problems, it negatively affects their ability to do well in school, relate to others, and positively approach their futures. Being young, they often lack the ability to verbalize or seek help for their concerns. As a result, they may act out in class as a way to get attention and deal with the pain they suffer, yet the teacher may react defensively or punitively, responding only to the behavior exhibited. This situation can result in the child's being removed from the class, and it has been shown that students who have been suspended from school can fall badly behind others in key metrics, such as reading skills.

Over 97% of JPA's young clients are African American or Latinx, qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and live in high-poverty neighborhoods on the South and West sides of Chicago, incl. North Lawndale, Altgeld-Riverdale, Roseland, and Belmont Cragin, among others, where community violence is rampant, exposing these children to stressors that can overwhelm their brains and jeopardize their ability to learn, develop, and thrive.

Research shows that among children experiencing poverty who are in need of mental health care, <15% receive services, and even fewer complete treatment (Hodgkinson et al, 2017) . By meeting our clients where they are, in their schools and in their communities, we ensure they are able to easily access treatment, which is evidenced by the fact that JPA’s school-based services consistently see an 89% attendance rate.

Research also shows that “close relationships with teachers are associated with improved academic and socioemotional functioning among children with behavioral and demographic risk” (Sabol, T. & Pianta, R. 2011). C2K accomplishes this in communities where such progress is desperately needed and difficult to attain. By helping teachers form stronger, more positive relationships with students, C2K delivers significant growth toward mental health and classroom goals — for both teachers and students - while also reducing punitive and ineffective treatment of children.

JPA's therapists are embedded in the schools where they work, although they are not part of the administration. They provide relationship-based one-on-one and small-group therapy for elementary and middle school children affected by toxic stress in high-poverty Chicago neighborhoods. Sessions occur weekly and continue as long as needed. By locating services in schools, we are able to reach many more children for a longer time than if they were required to go to a clinic, which would usually be outside the neighborhood and difficult to reach. Many students receive treatment for more than one school year.

Therapists/consultants also conduct classroom sessions for children about various topics of concern to them such as making friends, bullying, taking responsibility, and so on. Students are encouraged to participate for maximum effect.

JPA consultants introduce educators to the topic of toxic stress, how it affects children, and how to handle its symptoms when expressed in class. These topics are seldom covered in teacher education courses. Consultants work with teachers by conducting classroom observations that note how the teacher interacts with students and vice versa, meeting with them to discuss how those interactions went, and what might be done differently in the future. Teachers may ask the consultant to observe particular children as well. Consultations can be particularly effective because consultants are not part of the administration and therefore are not evaluating the teachers. They are there to help the teachers strengthen their abilities.

We also offer parent workshops that help parents understand stress and its expressions, how they can be "protective factors" for their children, and how they can maximize the positive factors of a parent-child relationship. In addition, JPA has recently begun to offer individual therapy for parents. The pandemic has disproportionately affected the communities we serve, resulting in the parents and caregivers of our clients coming to their child's therapist to help them work through the loss, illness, and isolation they have recently experienced as well as any intergenerational trauma that has been the result of years of social and economic inequality.

Finally, we constantly evaluate our work through periodic surveys that gauge children's progress, teachers' satisfaction with JPA programming, and other factors. By doing so we are able to improve each year.

80% of JPA’s clinical team are either licensed clinical social workers (LSCWs) or licensed clinical professional counselors (LCPCs) and 20% are either licensed professional counselors (LPCs) or have their Masters in Social Work (MSW). The clinical team is supervised by our Senior Director of Clinical Services. This employee holds a LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker with the State) and is sanctioned by the State to provide direct individual and group supervision for all clinical staff. He also has over 30 years of clinical experience including school based counseling, and he teaches graduate students in social work at Loyola University. All therapists providing school-based counseling receive weekly one-on-one supervision, participate in weekly Clinical Team meetings (which feature case presentations and outside experts) and are supported with internal PD and external professional development stipends.

JPA’s evaluation process is overseen by Stephen Budde, Ph.D. who has over 30 years of experience in child welfare as a clinical social worker, researcher, teacher, administrator, trainer and consultant. Prior to JPA, Dr. Budde was an Assistant Professor and Senior Researcher at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. He also teaches research and child welfare courses at the University of Chicago Crown School of Social Service Administration. Dr. Budde directs special projects and evaluation activities at JPA, oversees expert permanency planning assessments, and provides consultation and training on mental health and child welfare practice and evaluation to public and private agencies.

Annually, JPA serves approximately 2,500 children, caregivers and educators throughout 20+ schools in 8 neighborhoods on the South and West Sides of Chicago.

Educators at our partner schools report that our work has greatly improved their ability to work with children and has changed the school culture for the better. In schools where we are also tracking reading ability, students in therapy have been found to do better than those not in therapy. We also found that students engaged in school-based therapy services with JPA have a 7% higher school attendance rate than CPS as a whole!

JPA's therapy services consistently exceed the following metrics each year: 60% of the children served show substantial improvement; 75% of the children served report they learned something valuable from small group therapy; 80% of the children served report that they enjoyed the classroom groups and learned something valuable; 60% of the parents served report using suggestions made by the therapist; and 80% of the parents have substantial conversations with their child’s therapist.

in addition, JPA's C2K Program has consistently exceeded the following metrics each year since the program's inception in 2016: 1) 70% of teachers will report Child Support Plans created in consultation with C2K consultant helped them build more positive relationships with their students; 2) 80% of teachers will report being satisfied or very satisfied with the support received from C2K consultant; 3) 60% of children will show substantial improvement as rated by their teachers; 4) 80% of teachers will report will report satisfaction with JPA’s classroom groups; 5) 75% of teachers will report C2K had positive impact on their approach to working with parents; 6) 65% of parents report having good or excellent relationships with the therapist working with their child. We also find that C2K increases teachers’ job satisfaction and reduces job-related stress by 65-75%.