Aftercare/Reintegration Planning

Reintegration services are designed to facilitate a youth’s transition from an out-of-home placement back to the community and family environment through collaboration between the youth and community service providers, OJJ staff, and family to ensure the delivery of needed services and supervision. The overall goal is to assist the youth in becoming a productive citizen.

When a youth comes into OJJ custody, reintegration planning begins. Reintegration programs are emphasized when a youth enters a facility and continues through the youth’s transition to and stabilization in the community. Reintegration programs and services work together to strengthen and preserve the youth’s family. Through this collaboration, Probation and Parole Officers (PPO) identify the permanent plan and follow-up services needed for the youth upon release to facilitate successful transition and reintegration into the community.

There are three phases which create a continuum of care and services that overlay the juvenile justice continuum.

The three phases of the reintegration process are:

  • Phase I: the preparation process, creating the plan
  • Phase II: transitioning home, a restoration process
  • Phase III: staying home, sustaining and supporting youth


The PPO will be in regular contact with the youth’s family to facilitate communication, assess the family situation, and to ensure that a return to the family is a positive, healthy, constructive, workable plan for the youth. Escorted passes, home passes and furloughs are an integral part of reintegration planning.

OJJ continues to provide reintegration services once the youth is released.

OJJ contracts with several reintegration service providers who are responsible for facilitating collaborative relationships to:

  • provide for the safety and well-being of the youth, program staff, and community
  • provide services aimed at promoting social and emotional adjustment, enhancing life skills and independent living skills, and eliminating destructive behavioral patterns
  • provide services, when appropriate, to the youth’s family or guardian in order to facilitate the successful reintegration of the youth into the community
  • facilitate appropriate aftercare planning and services directed at reintegration

Services available to the youth upon release, to assist with successful reintegration, may include individual, group, and family counseling; mentoring/tracking services; educational/vocational services; employment assistance, etc.