Vacca Campus Named Finalist for 2025 Barbara Allen-Hagen Award

The Center for Improving Youth Justice (CIYJ) is very pleased to announce Vacca Campus in Birmingham 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 Vacca Campus joined the program to improve the overall safety, security and health for young people in their care. The team continues to strive to provide a safe environment where young people are engaged in structured programming and have more than their basic needs met.

Vacca Campus has an average daily population of 32 young people ages 11-16-years-old who stay an average of 152 days. The team analyzed its CIYJ Performance-based Standards data and saw how interventions such as confinement and restraints are connected with low staff morale and fear for safety.

They launched a Facility Improvement Plan to reduce the use of confinement and restraints, occurrences of assaults and fights and to improve overall safety of staff and young people. They focused on enhancing programming for young people. They developed various incentives for young people, implemented a staff recognition committee and started a youth executive league to promote leadership development. They started a system of coaching and modeling for staff and provided training emphasizing alternatives for punishment. The resulting shift has led to a significant reduction in the use and time of confinement.

Congratulations to the team at Vacca Campus: Facility Administrator Walter Alston, Site Coordinator LaShondra Hinton, Agency Coordinator Shannon Weston and Executive Director Steven Lafreniere. 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.

Kim is the executive director of the PbS Learning Institute. Kim was hired when CJCA incorporated in 1994 and has worked since it's inception to create the PbS system of continuous improvement to help facilities and agencies raise the quality of life and better conditions of confinement in youth facilities nationwide. She earned two master’s degrees: in journalism (Northwestern University) and criminal justice (Northeastern University.) She worked as a newspaper reporter for seven years prior to joining CJCA.

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