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This week’s 2022 PbS Kids Got Talent Contest Finalist Spotlight is a spoken poem titled "Destiny" from Central Oklahoma Juvenile Center. Delivered with confidence and poise, without added dramatic flair that would have detracted from the spare prose, the words conveyed a message that lingered long after this talented young writer delivered the final line.

Performance-based Standards (PbS) is proud to announce the finalists for the 2022 PbS Barbara Allen-Hagen Award, recognizing facilities that best exemplify PbS’ commitment to treating every young person as one of our own. Each finalist uniquely demonstrated how data can be used to improve outcomes for young people and staff by integrating research-based practices. They focused ...

The annual PbS Kids Got Talent Contest was established in 2015 to celebrate and showcase the creative talents of young people in participating correction, detention, assessment and community residential programs. This year, PbS received over 55 entries from 63 young people in 22 different facilities—and wow, what an impressive group of applicants! After careful review and cons ...

The 2022 PbS Reentry Award recipients are inherently unique in their respective journeys toward independence, yet fundamentally similar in what they need—the essentials most people take for granted. Food and shelter. Basic hygiene products. Clothes and shoes. For those seeking employment, interview attire. For future students, day planners and transportation to and from school. ...

On May 26, 2022, Performance-based Standards (PbS) hosted a webinar featuring a panel of agency directors discussing their experiences, what data lets them know reentry is successful, what information is critical, and more. This panel was moderated by Kim Godfrey Lovett, Executive Director of PbS, and Melissa Sickmund, Director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice.

On April 26, 2022, Performance-based Standards (PbS) hosted a webinar featuring a panel of young people with lived experience discussing their experiences and how juvenile justice agencies could have better helped them with reentry. This panel was moderated by Kim Godfrey Lovett, Executive Director of PbS, and Melissa Sickmund, Director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice.

PbS looked at more than 6,000 surveys between April 2020 and October 2021 to understand the impact of COVID-19 on young people leaving residential care and rejoining communities. In this PbS Data Snapshot, we share Youth Reentry Survey responses to some of the questions and issues posed by the pandemic.

The pandemic and racial violence have created more challenges for the staff and young people in the juvenile justice system than I’ve seen in my 27 years in this field. Not to mention the enormous burden of stress that came along with these impossible times.

On March 24, 2022, Performance-based Standards (PbS) hosted a webinar featuring a panel of data analysts discussing their experiences, what data lets them know reentry is successful, what information is critical, and more. This panel was moderated by Kim Godfrey Lovett, Executive Director of PbS, and Melissa Sickmund, Director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice.

The pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus and its variants continues to dominate public discussions and exacerbate already difficult situations in neighborhoods, schools, places of work and of worship and in homes and institutions. Because of the nature of the virus and the reality of asymptomatic infections, it is impossible to know the exact number of positive cases that occur within these various contexts. Widespread testing, however, has proven to be the most useful tool for shedding light on the prevalence of the virus and the effectiveness of interventions.