Although judicial leadership is critically important to the improvement process, it is not enough. Meaningful and sustainable systems improvement can only occur through concerted collaborative efforts on the part of all system professionals. The juvenile justice court judge must set the lead by committing his or her time and the time of juvenile justice court staff to collaboration efforts; but all relevant juvenile justice court stakeholders must become involved and make a commitment of time, effort, and resources.

Before engaging staff from the juvenile justice court and stakeholder organizations in improvement efforts, it is critical that the juvenile justice court judge has engaged executive level decision-makers from each stakeholder organization and obtained their commitment to the effort. It is equally critical that the executive leadership of each organization expresses endorsement of the effort within their organization and describes the goal of bringing together juvenile justice system staff, across all stake- holder organizations, to assess, design, and implement system improvement.

Once all stakeholder leaders have endorsed the collaboration and selected internal staff to lead the effort, both leadership and staff should examine basic tenets about collaboration and system improvement. They need to understand:

• Systems improvement is a process. Like any process it is filled with stops and starts, roadblocks and challenges, diversions, and missteps. This is a normal part of the process; it is to be expected. Rather than feel defeated or frustrated by the challenges and resistance encountered along the way, the team should celebrate them and learn to use them. They are signs of improvement and evidence that the system is moving.
• Systems improvement is people-driven. Organizations and systems are not “things,” they are a collection of people organized in some form for some purpose. Without people, the system does not exist. Consequently, in system improvement, “we” are changing “us.” The hearts and minds of the people involved need to be engaged.
• Systems improvement is an emotional process and likely to be filled with emotional swings at the individual, institutional, and systemic levels. Expect and anticipate the emotional impact of the process and learn how to manage interactions in productive ways. This is especially true when the reforms and innovations being adopted may be perceived as threatening to people’s jobs, positions, status, authority, resources, and routine.

Implementation of the JUVENILE JUSTICE GUIDELINES will probably mean redistribution of resources in many juvenile justice court systems. This dynamic must be handled with care by remaining focused on creating a system that maximizes community safety and helps youth to become law-abiding citizens. As resources are redistributed, every effort should be made to redistribute staff accordingly, whenever possible. The team building required for success is an evolutionary process. The collaborative work team needs to move to a point where the group is more than the sum of its individual parts and has an identity of its own. The group needs to be able to openly discuss issues and concerns, challenge each other’s core philosophies and practices, and engage in meaningful dialogue. Relationships and trust must be developed. Even with the general vision created by the executive leaders, reaching a consensus at the work team level about what should improve and how it should improve will not be an easy process. From time to time the executive leaders will need to make resource decisions and clear roadblocks. Both executive leaders and the collaborative work teams must constantly remain focused toward better outcomes for youth and enhanced community safety.

As the collaboration moves forward, the executive level decision makers and collaboration team leaders should meet regularly to review the work, recommendations, and outcomes of this effort, and to ensure accountability. Part of the responsibility of the executive leaders is to help staff identify and celebrate the achievement of each success along the improvement process.

If the use of collaborative teams is not an existing practice in a juvenile justice system, the juvenile justice court judge should meet with the leaders of each of the justice system stakeholders, begin building coalitions, and invite the leaders to join with the judge in a systems improvement effort. To succeed, the juvenile justice court judge must be willing to give the stakeholders a meaningful role, a strong voice, and a real opportunity to make a contribution. The judge must be inclusive and broad based, develop shared responsibility, and develop shared credit for success.