In 2024, APPA published its 10 Core Principles of Juvenile Probation, developed with extensive input from practitioners. Below, we outline how Pokket is directly mapped to the 10 Core Principles to implement those principles and improve the experience of juvenile probation actors and support better outcomes.
- Center youth and families to individualize probation
Pokket’s guardianship capability ensures that the youth and family have an active voice and seat at the table not only during the establishment of supervision expectations, but during the full term of supervision. Their ability to contribute to a unique set of goals and activities can maximize the youth’s growth and success. - Promote equity regarding race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability status
Pokket’s remote visit and meeting functionality can bring services currently only available in metro areas to youth regardless of where they live in the state. Service providers can advertise their services as being available virtually, to anywhere within the state. This is particularly important in states with low population density, or geographic barriers such as mountains and rivers where distance doesn’t reflect travel time, so all families can access quality services. - Align practice with research on adolescent development
A core component of this principle is providing the youth with agency and legitimate pathways forward. Pokket offers the youth agency – the opportunity to develop the executive function to manage their own affairs as an adult, an opportunity to speak up and present their version of events, and the ability to co-create their own plan to generate a legitimate life pathway. - Minimize conditions of probation
Expecting youth on probation to immediately and consistently comply with long lists of rules and conditions is inconsistent with adolescent development research. Mistakes and lapses are to be expected. Pokket easily supports changes in expectations, and brings clarity to exactly what expectations mean on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, it supports the development of patterns of habit, to see if the youth is generally trending positively or negatively. The youth has the opportunity to demonstrate their own compliance, providing them with “a fighting chance.” - Minimize confinement
Simplifying collaborative case planning and execution, and increasing the engagement of the youth and family through improved communication and executive function, supports youth success. In that way, early intervention with the Pokket support tools may allow some youth to avoid confinement who would otherwise be destined for that pathway. - Look to encourage success, not punish failure
“Juvenile probation is most effective when it focuses more on support than punishment, more on assistance than control, and more on motivating positive behavior change through rewards, incentives, and encouragement rather than trying to deter delinquent behavior through threats, punishments, and, ultimately, confinement.” Pokket is designed to provide both support and accountability. By making it easy to present goals and track progress against associated objectives, it is directly aligned with encouraging success. - Be a bridge to opportunity and connection to the community
One function of a probation officer or court counselor is to assist the youth in accessing resources in the community. Pokket includes not only a directory, but the ability for the youth to self-serve and even complete referrals with a full release of information executed by the parent to facilitate remote screening and enrollment in services.
Pokket is designed to enable better communication between the youth and family, community supervision, and the service providers who offer such important services to the youth and family. Commonly, it is local service providers who have the most frequent and in-depth contact, and who develop trusted relationships with the youth. Pokket supports privacy-compliant collaborative case planning, execution, and reporting that spans providers and justice agencies. The Pokket guardianship function explicitly maintains parental engagement, even during custodial or congregate living situations. - Be a coach, teacher, mentor, and advocate
In the coach and mentor context, Pokket is designed explicitly to support motivational interviewing and the identification and activation of the child’s desires. Providing the youth with the opportunity to express themselves in response to prompting supports the coach model, of actions and decisions being done “with” and “by” the child, not just “to” or “for” them. - Aim for progress, not perfection
“Achieving a limited number of top goals to address factors that led to delinquent conduct and connecting young people with relevant services and positive youth development activities should be the primary focus.” Pokket allows for the mutual creation, execution, and tracking of those goals, with objectives and the tasks or action steps that can be written in the youth’s own words. Again, the connection with services and resources is simplified. - Hold probation accountable for meaningful results
“Alongside other public agencies responsible for serving youth — education, child welfare, and mental and behavioral health systems — probation must be held accountable for results. More specifically, probation must be held accountable for helping young people succeed. Probation agencies must set goals, monitor progress, report young people’s achievement of critical milestones, and find ways to measure their impact on the lives of youth. To do this, probation must solicit and incorporate feedback from the youth and families the agency serves to ensure that probation is meeting their needs and supporting their success.” Pokket accomplishes this by making it easy to create and execute against goals and report on that success. Furthermore, the Pokket forms function makes it easy to regularly survey youth and family and collect their feedback and input.