The Center for Improving Youth Justice (CIYJ) is very pleased to announce Loysville Youth Development Center (LYDC) in Loysville, PA has been selected as one of the finalists for the 2025 Barbara Allen-Hagen Award in the correction category.
The Performance-based Standards team at LYDC sought to reduce assaults on staff while improving staff morale and retention. The team was committed to changing the facility’s reputation of simply being a tough place to work.
LYDC has an average daily population of 43 young people ages 15-20-years old who stay an average of 10.5 months. At the start of this improvement effort, staff morale and retention were low and the CIYJ Performance-based Standards data showed their rate of injuries was above the field average of corrections facilities.
They created a Facility Improvement Plan (FIP) to reduce assaults on staff and set out with a multi-pronged approach. Video reviews of assaults on staff showed staff were most often injured if standing directly in front of a highly escalated young person and and/or immediately after using a physical restraint. Staff were coached to “stay out of the Danger Zone,” to seek additional support from other staff prior to implementing physical restraints and to address the young person’s needs earlier. Staff also were coached to offer young people more opportunities for a self-requested time out with the expectation that they would engage in problem-solving conversations with staff. Additionally, each unit was instructed to develop an effective incentive program with rewards selected by the young people.
As these efforts continue to keep staff assaults low, the facility is seeing improved outcomes in other areas as well, including reported staff fear, use of restraints and staff injuries. The success of this plan is contributing to less staff turnover and will mean more units can reopen. The team at LYDC strongly believes that continuing engagement with the Performance-based Standards continuous improvement program will help to sustain these successes and anticipate other facility issues before they escalate.
Congratulations to the team at LYDC: Juvenile Justice Complex Director Lettie Truesdale, Site Coordinator and Career and Technical Training Specialist Randy Goshorn, Human Services Program Executive Mike Both, Agency Coordinator Ron Douglas and Agency Director Kevin Seabrook. Keep up the great work!
The CIYJ Barbara Allen-Hagen Award, established in 2007, honors the legacy of Barbara Allen-Hagen, a dedicated advocate from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) who led the development of the Performance-based Standards project, now CIYJ’s signature program. This prestigious award recognizes facilities and programs that embody Barbara’s guiding principle: Treat all young people coming into facilities as one of our own. The awardees demonstrate the positive impact of adhering to research-based standards and the continuous improvement process championed by CIYJ.