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Lassen youth wellness

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Content 1
Lassen Youth Wellness
Janet A. Cunningham
A Capstone Project Presented to
The Faculty of the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
The University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Social Work (DSW)
October 29, 2021
December 2021
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Acknowledgments
I would not be here without a constant champion of the educational dream: my mother Judy. My
children Dustin and Francesca, who got less of me as I journey with the USC DSW Cohort 11.
Over the past year, the children's father supported my success. Samantha, my child of the heart,
the first teenage hurdle. Not least, the Susanville Runners who have marked so many trail miles
along this educational path.
My mentors along the way, who challenged me to do exceed my best: Dr. Renee Smith-Maddox,
Professor Cassandra Fatorous, and Dr. Shinyi Wu. Without forgetting, the instructors who
bolstered my confidence, Dr. Terrence Fitzgerald and Professor Jane James. Along the way, my
peers who shared the emotions of pursuing education with me: Claudia Castro, Dawn
Rock, Janelle Porter, Leslie Davis, and Lynnette Sullivan.
With gratitude, Jennifer Petersen, CEO, Lassen Intervention who never lost faith in my ability to
finish and provided me the space to operationalize. Jennifer Branning, Chief Probation Officer,
who sparked the collaboration of this project. Overall, the community of Lassen County, for
embracing the project as an opportunity to have the relationship with their child they desire.
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Abstract
The Capstone Project supports Achieving Equal Opportunity and Justice in Juvenile Justice by
seizing a unique challenge created through California SB 823 (Juvenile justice realignment:
Office of Youth and Community Restoration). Individual counties must seek to iterate creative
solutions tailored to their culture and population that a mass state juvenile incarceration system
attempted yet failed. In a collective effort, Lassen Youth Wellness and Lassen County Probation
aspire to support caregivers of justice-impacted juveniles, provide accessible, evidence-based
emotion/anger management capacities and engage in an evaluation culture. The probation
department identifies placement stabilization as the crux to juveniles completing their probation
terms. The proposed Capstone Project seeks to marry the historically identified disparity that
human service agencies have noted for years: Child Welfare serves parents, and Juvenile
Probation serves children. Lassen Youth Wellness proposes an intervention to serve both
populations through a condensed wraparound framework to foster safe growth and facilitate the
emergence of improved communication for families to strengthen and build a healthy
relationship with their justice-impacted child. The theoretical frameworks guiding this project
uses systems theory, self-efficacy theory, cultural exchange model, and the EPIS framework for
implementation. Through this structure, Lassen Youth Wellness has implemented concurrent
family services for caregivers and justice-impacted juveniles to increase the skills needed to
promote healthy outcomes. All participants experience real-time skill-building to transition from
detention centers to the home environment. The proposal presents a disruptive intervention of a
"wicked" problem in Lassen County's Juvenile Justice System.
Keywords: equal opportunity, caregivers, justice-impacted juveniles
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Lassen Youth Wellness: A Capstone Project
The Grand Challenges for Social Work represent a framework for complex social
problems in juvenile justice, such as Achieving Equal Opportunity and Justice in Juvenile
Justice. The problem is that inherently the community is ill-equipped to handle the higher needs
of justice-impacted juveniles. For decades, the quick answer was detention and incarceration.
The proposed Capstone Project focuses on a specific dimension of this Social Work Grand
Challenge: increasing the caregiver capacity of the justice-impacted juvenile. The project posits a
parallel intervention that is caregiver-focused to support juvenile education. The intervention
manifested through a co-design process with community stakeholders, former justice impacted
juveniles, and foster parents to create positive short and long-term outcomes, assessed through a
comprehensive program evaluation. For rural areas with scarce resources, the implication is to
bring ethical and cost-effective services to the community, thus steering them closer to
Achieving Equal Opportunity and Justice in Juvenile Justice.
The complexity of Achieving Equal Opportunity and Justice in Juvenile Justice as a
Social Work Grand Challenge exists because approximately one million juvenile offenders
annually are at increased risk for barriers to development, education, and employment, as well as
entry into the adult justice system (Kim et al., 2020). Since 2015, the California Division of
Juvenile Justice (DJJ) has responded to public awareness and implemented reform initiatives,
with living condition improvements but continued consistent recidivism (Ridolfi et al., 2020).
Ineffective programming has a high price tag, ranging annually from $88,000 to $300,000 per
justice-impacted juvenile (Aizer & Doyle, 2013; Muhammed, 2020). The adverse outcomes have
a tremendous impact on justice-impacted juveniles, including social capacity, educational
attainment, employability, and future elevated risk for transitioning to the adult incarceration
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system. California legislature took action and eliminated funding for the DJJ to implement a
juvenile realignment initiative, much like the adult realignment policies (CA SB-823, 2020). As
a result, justice-impacted juveniles return to their counties (58) of origin for probation
supervision.
Specific problem identification is that justice-impacted juveniles lack the knowledge,
skills, and ability to manage decision-making impulsivity. This developmental gap leads to
exclusion from the community by initiating a revolving door to incarceration. Juveniles who gain
social-emotional and anger management skills have the foundational elements to complete their
education, maintain jobs, and participate in healthy relationships. Juveniles are our future
community members who will benefit from learning how to communicate, advocate, and solve
their interpersonal frustrations instead of being at the behest of the court/legal system.
Addressing in-home placement stabilization through increased communication skills and
improved emotional regulation between the juveniles and their caregivers will increase long-term
positive outcomes by halting a cyclical system of dependence.
The project's scope is to facilitate an innovative intervention to match the intent of CA
SB823 Juvenile Justice Realignment: community inclusion. The innovative distinction focuses
on the caregiver as the solution versus narrowing in on the juvenile as the problem. The
intervention framework is a "mini" WRAParound Program, as recommended in the working
paper of the Grand Challenge, in order to increase the use of the WRAParound framework (Kim
et al., 2020). Family systems theory supports justice-impacted juveniles by strengthening their
caregiver's capacity to maintain the juvenile in-home, through evidence-based services that
support anti-recidivism. The empowerment approach supports a parallel education intervention
that follows a "train-the-trainer" model to caregivers of justice-impacted juveniles and their
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wards (the justice-impacted juveniles. The narrative approach promotes a new story with case
management and therapeutic support to generalize the group learning beyond the classroom.
Through this theory of change, strengthened family units will be capable of stabilizing
placements to avert the adverse long-term outcomes associated with exclusion.
Data collection will occur through intake/outtake questionnaires and is used as a
pre/posttest comparison to measure changes in knowledge (anger management), attitudes (social-
emotional), and beliefs (confidence survey). The engagement question is collected weekly to
assess participant attitudes about participation to inform real-time adjustments and strategies.
Data is stored in locked cabinets in a locked office until input into the Excel tracking sheets
housed in GoogleVault. Facilitator skills, assessment, and data learning are reviewed routinely
through weekly supervision with the clinical director. In the future, supplemental technology
could complement the program, such as mobile apps that support check-ins or host the tools
covered. A critical lens and continuous stakeholder questioning allow the opportunity to spot
unforeseen issues for pivot points and embrace an expectation of iteration across the project's
lifetime.
Lassen County Probation (California) has long voiced a desire for an anger management
provider for its wards; however, funding has been scarce. In August 2020, CA SB-823: Juvenile
Justice Realignment presented the opportunity to co-design an intervention. Lassen Youth
Wellness (housed in Lassen Intervention) emerged through a design process across a breadth of
stakeholders at local, state, and regional levels. Contributors with direct experience in the system
have ranged from currently incarcerated adults, justice-free adults who participated in the
juvenile justice system, probation officers, and the Lassen County Presiding Judge. Regarding
caregiver stakeholders, input came from current caregivers, a foster care program designer that
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supports caregivers with behaviorally challenged youth, former foster youth, community
teachers, and community agencies. The design centered on an intervention that would extend
beyond the individual rehabilitation of juveniles and address the entire family system. The
collective impact is an intervention that builds on pre-existing lock-up programs by transferring
communication and impulse management tools from the classroom to the home. The result is a
human-centered design that focuses on empowering the family unit to bridge what works during
lock-up but so often fails to translate into the home setting.
The capstone project intends to tackle a portion of Achieving Equal Opportunity and
Justice in Juvenile Justice. By leveraging the social design of an educational model with trauma-
informed family therapy, the capstone project poses a practical solution to address the scarcity of
resources creatively. The capstone project will assist the adolescents in stabilizing themselves
with their home environment and ongoing inclusion in the community, by providing them with
safe home space. The rural environment is severely restricted with service providers and lacks
the benefits of an extensive county system's economy. Through partnership across the
adolescents, caregivers, and justice system, Lassen Youth Wellness will promote the
psychosocial maturity development and strengthened family unit necessary to reduce recidivism.
The capstone project received inaugural funding through Lassen County Probation,
California, in July 2021 for the FY2021-22. The populations of justice-impacted juveniles
currently served are either in a diversion, in-home placement, or detention facility placement. All
current caregivers and future identified caregivers will support placement stability and transition
home for the adolescents in higher levels of care. The juveniles will receive the anger
management and social-emotional learning curriculums. The caregiver education groups parallel
the juvenile curriculum to "train the trainer," thereby reinforcing the education provided to the
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juvenile within the home environment. Groups co-occur to reduce attendance barriers to the
participants. The curriculum allows for open entry/exit and is twenty-four weeks in length. There
will be one-on-one sessions to personalize the group learning. Referral points to the therapeutic
component will depend upon their risk assessment levels determined by their probation officer.
Zoom technology supports out-of-county participants (foster homes and juvenile detention
facilities) to support continuity of care and facilitate community transition.
The capstone project includes initiating an evaluation plan to evaluate the intervention’s
outcomes: (1) placement stability and (2) juveniles retain the tools to communicate and manage
their impulses effectively. All participants will complete pre/post tests for the Cognitive Emotion
Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski & Kraaij 2007), ARISE (pre/posttest), and a skills
confidence questionnaire. Upon entry to the therapeutic component, each participant will
participate in the Brief Trauma Questionnaire (Schnurr et al., 1995). The project aims to increase
the effectiveness of caregivers to promote placement stabilization. Hence, outcomes
measurements will also monitor for placement disruption frequencies. Long-term measures
involve data mining via public records to determine recidivism impact. Additionaly, the internal
evaluation will focus on the lessons learned from the implementation of the project.
Juvenile justice realignment policies require effective lock-up programming that
translates into an outpatient system of care. The innovative component is leveraging the
caregivers as our solution through educating and managing high-risk behaviors. Translating the
boundaries of trained staff in a lock-up facility to caregivers requires an investment in the
caregivers' education to support the juveniles' reintegration. The educational interventions of
social-emotional learning and anger management are effective in the lock-up setting but struggle
to generalize when the juvenile returns to the community. Supporting the caregiver in anger
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management/social-emotional learning is an innovative way to bridge the support services into a
home's environmental reality. If the project achieves the predicted success through an
educational intervention with as-needed therapeutic support, there are significant financial
implications. Specifically, the immediate impact is for rural counties with limited resources
seeking an effective low-cost/high efficacy model. Moral implications exist for supporting
juveniles in the lowest care level: the family is a solution for long-term health outcomes.
Conceptual Framework
Children who enter the court system in Lassen County have severely limited resources to
assist them in averting the too high risk of lifetime systemic involvement and dependence in the
court system. Rural areas receive few resources and little attention to support at-risk children in
their communities. Lassen County Probation has lacked consistently implemented
diversion/rehabilitation services and has struggled to stabilize in-home juvenile placements
(group home, foster parent, and parent). As the local Juvenile Detention Facility lost funding
several years ago, Lassen County children are placed in facilities up to eight hours from their
home base. With defunding the California Department of Juvenile Justice, these wards will
prepare to return to supervision under Lassen County Probation. In July 2021, the statewide
juvenile justice alignment initiative rolled out, creating a need for support services that provide
diversion/rehabilitation and placement stabilization. In partnership with Lassen County Probation
and community stakeholders, Lassen Intervention submitted a proposal for funding of the Lassen
Youth Wellness intervention to address three needs: (1) a juvenile outpatient education-based
intervention that provides social-emotional learning and emotional (anger) management, (2) a
support model for caregivers to promote placement stabilization, and (3) proposed metrics that
support an evaluation plan of the intervention.
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Literature
Juvenile probation is a tipping point for the opportunity to alter years of adverse adult
outcomes. Recent studies articulate the direct long-term impact of juvenile incarceration on the
immediate community and family systems, specifically increased inter-related medical and
mental health conditions (Barnert et al., 2017). As juveniles are in the midst of their formative
second brain development, Kim et al. (2020) identified the impacted developmental areas
specific to justice-impacted juveniles: behavioral, emotional, and mental health. Early attempts at
rehabilitation and ensuing recidivism rates illustrate the importance of the environment in
providing intervention for these youth. Muhammed (2020) describes the contradictive experience
between 1999 and 2004 of harsh and violent environments while providing cognitive behavioral
therapy to the youth of the California Youth Authority. With a daunting historical recidivism rate
of 90%, the risk translates to painful adult outcomes: increased depression, post-traumatic stress,
anger, and causative factors due to failed intervention services (Tossone et al., 2017).
Emotion and Anger Management are often interchangeable terms. Anger, as a secondary
emotion, is encapsulated within anger management. Anger management applies to the undesired
behavioral component of misaligned emotion management. The application of understanding the
broader scale of emotion management is critical to address ongoing justice system involvement,
i.e., recidivism. Kelly (2019) used pre/posttest scoring in a juvenile detention facility, finding
that higher anger scores upon entry into lock-up have shown a correlation to increased risk for
further offenses. Quasi-experimental studies within the incarcerated facilities have illustrated
efficacy in providing emotion regulation interventions under "anger management." An
intervention that addresses psychosocial maturity and emotion regulation is proven to work
within a secure facility (with juvenile females (Riggs, 2018), under the Juvenile Justice Anger
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Management (JJAM) intervention. Two additional studies within a locked facility, with juvenile
females, found efficacy with implementing cognitive behavior-based anger management
(Goldstein, 2013; Goldstein, 2018). Currie et al. (2012) conducted a longitudinal study within a
correctional setting addressing the behavioral component. The study identified that juvenile
participants could generalize the Aggression Replacement Training (ART) learning/skills during
the intervention. However, there were generalization challenges after the intervention. The
generalization of skills is critical for long-term success in tackling recidivism.
It is imperative to understand the current cognitive reality of juveniles who enter the
justice system and the changes that emerge with maturity. A study by Wikström et al. (2018)
uses situational action theory to explain the predisposed foundation youth exposed to criminal
behaviors and environment from a young age, with a critical highlight to understanding that
situation does not refer to a physical space, but rather how a person reacts within a given
problem. The study identifies a causation point where a juvenile chooses one of two behavioral
options: pro-social or self-benefit. Riggs (2018) addresses the significance of impulsivity and
psychosocial maturity development, impacting long-term emotional development and enhancing
moral reasoning. The combination of these two concepts illustrates the consequences of social-
emotional learning deficits for our juvenile justice entrants.
In evaluating the Juvenile Justice Reforms, mandated by consent decrees, Krisberg
(2014) reviewed the initial recommendation from 2004 that the ward behavior management
problem was solvable by supporting the state prison staff providing care to the juvenile wards.
Additionally, the study by Wikström et al. (2018) emphasizes the importance of the setting in
which the juveniles are residing, which helps assess the impact of attempting interventions with
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the juvenile, absent caregiver participation. It becomes clear that whoever operates in the
caregiver role (staff or caregiver) is pivotal for support if outcomes for juveniles are to improve.
The literature on how to manage reductions in recidivism varies. In a study by
Kretschmar et al. (2016), behavioral health diversion treatment did indicate reduced recidivism
post-intervention from an outpatient perspective. Wanklyn et al. (2012) found correlations
between child maltreatment and depression as predictive factors in the juvenile justice
population, connecting hopelessness and impulsivity versus substance abuse to recidivism rates.
It appears that the children of the study may not yet have accessed substance abuse as an
unhealthy coping mechanism. Alleviating youth of their need to seek out unhealthy notions for
self-soothing may bring about improved outcomes. Hence, treating depression and emotion
management in juveniles may be an intervention point to avert accrued substance use disorders.
Additionally, Robst et al. (2017) found that recidivism is associated with trauma
experiences. In a German study by Tas (2020), a caveat, co-occurring mental health does appear
to limit social-emotional education's efficacy, with notable improvement in learned skills but not
within actual emotion regulation. However, this does carry capacity for achieving pro-social
behaviors. Another area to examine the problem on a broader scale, within an ecological system
view, includes the family system and the court involvement. A study by Cook (2015) addresses
frustrations between juvenile justice officials (limited consequence options), parental stressors
(depression, substance abuse), and navigating court-involved children (low levels of trust). This
study identifies the merits of providing intervention to support caregivers and educate justice
impacted juveniles. Overall, the literature points to the benefits of an anger management
curriculum, better outpatient settings, and therapeutic support for emotional needs and trauma
recovery. The question is how to marry what works to the right setting and correct population.
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With the recent defunding of the DJJ, service/treatment delivery will primarily become
an outpatient model in the family, foster, and group home settings. Current intervention
modalities are cognitive-behavioral approaches, preferably in the lowest level of care necessary.
Walker et al. (2019) found implementing a cognitive behavior program that promoted emotion,
thought, and behavior regulation through a ten-week, bi-weekly program to be effective (pilot
gender normed for females). Implications for Walker et al.'s (2019) study of a second-tier
intervention outside of "lock-up" are that outpatient services are generalizable. Goldstein et al.
(2013) addressed the anger component by introducing cognitive-behavioral intervention for
females in a juvenile justice detention facility. The outcome of the longitudinal study by
Goldstein et al. (2018) found that anger management intervention effectively reduces difficulties
with emotional regulation and physical aggression. There did appear to be a positive impact on
juvenile recidivism by treating emotional content (primary) and anger expression (secondary). In
reviewing best practices, Stout et al. (2017) surveyed three evaluations on the Intensive
Supervision Program (ISP), a model for chronic juvenile offenders and their families. The ISP
root is Multi-System Therapy (MST), which shows years of long-term efficacy in the United
States. The components are six months of partnership approach, yet ISP was not statistically
better than other interventions when assessed in Australia. In working with juvenile offenders,
Parris et al. (2015) focus on the healing area of trust and connection, in line with trauma-
informed practices within the interventions. Overall, the interventions align with what Monahan
et al. (2015) found, citing numerous court cases that validate the science of the developing
juvenile brain as impacted by impulsiveness and short-term decision making.
The cost of prevention of even one victim is priceless, considering both the crime victim
and the unserved juvenile. Consider the benefit of one juvenile who remains in our community
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instead of being incarcerated. With an approximate average price tag of $9,233.40 per
caregiver/juvenile unit, Lassen Youth Wellness provides an alternative of outpatient services to
support a family versus juvenile incarceration. Goldstein (2017) compared the annual cost of
incarcerating a juvenile of $271,318 to the price tag for a four-year undergraduate degree at a
private university of $276,000. Additionally, consider long-term adverse outcomes with an
annual $81,203 price tag of housing an adult in prison (LAO, 2018-19). There are exponential
economic ripple effects to house an offender that commits a violent crime and receives a life
sentence. Systems can pay this sum year after year for long-term adult incarceration or disrupt
the cycle by providing juveniles with anger management and social-emotional learning before
they enter into the adult system. This approach has worked during lock-up. However, with the
absence of physical constraints, the generalization into the community is diminished, lending to
high recidivism rates. The caregiver is our solution, both morally and fiscally, for the long-term
health of a rural community's children. Individuals who choose to be caregivers for justice-
impacted juveniles, either as foster parents or within a group home setting, are people who have
the desire to make a difference. However, the intent does not always match the difficulty of the
high-needs youth.
Caregivers who gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities to support high-risk justice-
impacted juveniles by attaining specific skills in anger management and social-emotional
learning will experience increased confidence in maintaining the juveniles in their homes.
Justice-impacted juveniles who learn to manage their emotions and impulsivity are more likely
to remain in their home/placement. Fostering long-term inclusion within their community has the
potential to avert the revolving door of the adult incarceration system. Addressing in-home
placement stabilization through increased communication skills and improved emotional
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regulation skills between the juveniles and their caregivers will increase long-term positive
outcomes by halting a cyclical system dependence. As juveniles, our future community members
will learn how to communicate, advocate, and solve their problems instead of being at the
court/legal system's behest to do it for them. Additionally, within the intervention, the
implementers will gain experience with intervention implementation, administer scales, collect
data, analyze data, and foster an internal evaluation culture absent in the current landscape.
The parallel innovation supports and provides education to the caregivers to manage the
high needs of the juvenile justice population. The expected result will be the transition of
decarceration from the California state prison system. Research has shown that keeping juveniles
in the home is beneficial, and community inclusion is cost-effective in short- and long-term
projections. Lassen Youth Wellness provides a two-fold fiscal and moral alternative: educate the
juveniles with anger management and social-emotional learning while strengthening their
caregivers with the identical curriculum to generalize the acquired knowledge into the home. The
teaching goes beyond the classroom when the participants can use the same change language
within the home. In addition, the training mimics the lock-up support provided by the state
through inclusion versus exclusion. Investing in elevating our caregivers and educating our
juveniles will provide the foundational piece for our youth to develop a healthy sense of self-
efficacy and empowerment through acquiring healthy skills.
Theory of Change
The capstone project hypothesizes that an intervention that supports caregivers and
educates juveniles can improve juveniles' short and long-term outcomes. The project aims to
strengthen the family to support placement stabilization and align with the literature on the
lowest level of care placement. The intervention works through a parallel implementation of
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anger management and social-emotional curriculums to "train the trainer" for caregivers and
educate the juveniles. A Theory/Model/Framework (TMF) conceptualizes the process of turning
research into practice, assessing the influencing factors, and purposeful evaluation of the process
(Nilsen, 2015). The Theory of Change (Appendix A) for the proposed capstone project
intervention was co-designed through the lens of family systems and social learning theory,
emphasizing the Cultural Exchange Model and housed in the EPIS (Exploration, Preparation,
Implementation, Sustainability) Framework. The TMF applies to both the implementation of the
intervention and an evaluation culture with staff.
The Theory of Change for the Lassen Youth Wellness intervention is rooted in a family
systems structure, informed by empowerment theory, social learning theory, and relational-
cultural theory. Family systems theory underpins the intervention by targeting caregivers'
support while honoring the difficult task of caring for a teenager who is now at higher risk for
life-long poor outcomes. Empowerment theory supports the self-efficacy and desire people
(caregivers and juveniles) innately have to survive and drive their lives, rather than having an
institutional entity dictate. The overarching desired outcome is to promote placement
stabilization, whereby the family unit gains the ability to maintain their family absent
involvement with the juvenile justice system. A participatory approach of soliciting weekly
feedback engages and empowers the participants to see real-time changes versus the end of a
program. Social learning theory promotes the generalization of the outpatient modality into the
home, with more family members practicing the skills, allowing for reflective modeling.
Specifically, the parallel service delivery model of the education component provides caregivers
an opportunity for joint participation to model help-seeking behaviors and promote learning a
common language to increase the generalization of the skills to the home environment. In
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conjunction, relational-cultural theory supports the trauma-informed therapy component, which
explicitly encapsulates the context for the dynamics the intervention innately encompasses with
high-risk youth: trauma (physical/neglect), historical trauma (racism), economics, and family
environment. Design justice is possible through this correlation of valuing family, increasing
efficacy, sharing expert status within the family, and honoring trauma points.
The Cultural Exchange Model focuses on commitment to understanding other people's
viewpoints. The EPIS framework identifies distinct outer and inner features, facilitators, and
barriers and shows the bridging and innovative connectors applied to the capstone project
(Appendix B). The framework supports understanding the context of the environment, the
resources, and the support structures needed to navigate an intervention to address the juveniles,
who with complex behaviors require higher levels of caregiving skills.
The Logic Model is an illustration of resources, conceptualized through the values of the
Theory of Change. The Lassen Youth Wellness Logic Model (Appendix C) illustrates a solution
to the intent and purpose of Juvenile Justice Realignment, of local resources solving
rehabilitation and safety in unique local ways. The logic model considers the resources available
to a rural county and the identified values by the stakeholders: family, local solutions, emotional
awareness, and communication. The justice stakeholders identified how services focus on the
juvenile as the "identified problem." The hopes expressed were for healing the families versus in-
home interventions that frequently treat the juvenile and return the individual to the same
environment that produced the unhealthy interaction patterns that supported original criminal
behaviors. Stakeholder themes expressed concerns of provider turnover, ineffective use of the
Wraparound framework, and ineffective parenting. The logic model represents the collective
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resources for a proposed solution, which seeks to alleviate the common pitfall of interventions
that do not generalize from incarceration to the home environment.
Problem of Practice
Lassen Youth Wellness has implemented a parallel intervention, with the unique focus on
supporting the justice-impacted juvenile's caregivers through a "train the trainer" model. The
caregivers receive the curriculum as trainers in social-emotional learning and anger management.
The justice impacted juveniles receive the same evidence-based curriculums. The
implementation includes weekly 90 minute groups delivered in a parallel model: one group for
caregivers (parent, relative, guardian, or group home staff) and one for juveniles. A support
component is trauma-informed therapy with an LMFT. The program predicts to serve
approximately twenty juveniles per year. Juveniles in the justice system are between the ages of
12-25; hence, there may be exceptions where the defined "caregiver" might be an adult who does
not currently reside with the identified juvenile. The design features data collection, pre/post
questionnaires for anger management and social-emotional learning, and confidence surveys. A
disruptive feature is fostering an evaluative culture through comprehensive metrics for
engagement (process) and improvement (outcomes). With an evaluation plan that incorporates
iteration, Lassen Youth Wellness creates a platform for service provider accountability in Lassen
County and future scaling to other rural counties. Focusing on the caregivers of the justice
impacted juveniles as a solution values family capacity versus system dependence and is a
pivotal opportunity to improve juvenile justice long-term outcomes. Families solving challenges
through support embraces social work ethics and has implications for addressing the Social
Work Grand Challenge of Achieving Equal Opportunity and Justice.

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Stakeholders
The stakeholder perspective provides an opportunity to co-create an intervention focus
that aligns with the user community's understanding of the problem. The judicial theme involved
a family focus around communication. Probation requested an anger management program and a
"want" of a therapist. Attorneys from the public defender desired a shorter program (three
months); however, probation across multiple jurisdictions advocated for a more extended
program (six months), citing frustration with service providers being a "mill" and not developing
long-lasting helping relationships. Educators expressed a need for social-emotional learning.
Caregivers expressed hopelessness and frustration, both with maintaining the juveniles and the
lack of support from the system. Formerly incarcerated juveniles (now adults) expressed the
following themes: a need for a communal intervention rather than feeling like the only
"identified" problem and a pathway out of the place they find themselves. The Wraparound
framework addresses these themes, yet many internal community members voiced, "Wraparound
does not work." Investigation revealed that it might be a perception that the Wraparound
Framework does not work; however, stakeholders are generally unaware of the metrics to
measure the framework. As well, the local framework has experienced significant turnover. The
gap in stakeholder translation became apparent after funding, in that only a handful of decision-
makers who funded the capstone project understand the evaluation piece. It appears that there is
an opportunity to improve internal evaluation and translation of the evaluation to community
partners.
Proposed Solution
The proposed solution builds off a platform of contextual successes with anger
management and the conceptual use of a Wraparound framework; understanding a solution must
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transfer the gains from the immediate to the intermediate and long-term outcomes. Due to being
family-focused, Wraparound is the leading framework for use with juvenile justice interventions;
however, smaller or rural populations struggle with resourcing to achieve fidelity of the
Wraparound framework. A proposed solution of Lassen Youth Wellness embodies the family
focus, combined with a scaled team designed to mitigate excess movement across service
providers. The mini-Wraparound framework encompasses two educational service providers, a
therapist, and the clients. The educational providers deliver anger management and social-
emotional learning with evidence-based interventions with efficacy in the lock-up phase.
However, they have limitations in generalizing when the youth transition home. Historically, the
juvenile is in the role of the "identified problem." Now, with the current legislative policy of
California SB823 valuing the lowest level of care, with a goal of in-home placement, caregivers
must prepare to have the very children in their home they were previously incapable of
maintaining. The proposed solution is to provide a smaller, more manageable framework, with
the services to the caregivers as the primary client building the architecture to close a gap in
placement stability for justice-impacted juveniles.
Landscape, Design Criteria, and Predictions
A diverse array of interventions already exist within closing the gap on Achieving Equal
Opportunity and Justice in Juvenile Justice. While these options address gaps, scale and
accessibility become problematic with the scarcity of resources in rural communities. The Lassen
Youth Wellness Competitive Analysis (Appendix D) assesses current local programs,
interventions utilized by other counties (rural and urban), and out-of-state approaches. The
analysis carefully considered the opportunities within the context of a rural county. Specific
areas assessed were the community's human capital, political interplay, and environmental
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attitudes and beliefs toward the intended population of the intervention. The literature analysis
focused on program models that provide Wraparound and Intensive In-Home Treatment. The
design criteria (Appendix E) for any proposal emerged across multiple stakeholders, resulting in
the requirements that drive the solution that Lassen Youth Wellness proposes.
The proposed intervention aligns with the consensus around the recommendations for
juvenile justice interventions, explicitly using a smaller whole family care framework to
capitalize on higher communication across a manageable number of providers. The logic model
illustrates the unique inputs with the current human capital available to social work interns
educators. The model leverages existing infrastructure, providing services that have not existed
while facilitating quality resource development within the rural community. The proposed
solution empowers caregivers to manage high-risk youth, empowers the juveniles with evidence-
based tools, and represents social learning reflections within the family. The cultural exchange
component occurs through the community's healing and growth within itself. The proposed
solution assesses the community's strengths, building resources to create inclusive growth.
As a for-profit service provider, Lassen Intervention has three years of positive outcomes
with adult diversion programs on behalf of the following court-involved systems: Adult
Probation, Child Welfare, and Family Law. The educational programs are court-approved and
range from adult anger management, batterers' intervention, co-parenting, and parenting. The
growth has occurred incrementally, based solely on community partners' requests for additional
services. The theory of change extends to a cultural mindset, even in the staffing of Lassen
Youth Wellness. The team values high levels of communication to solve problems collectively
and is participatory (family systems). A reputation for outcomes and high ethical standards
attracted two skilled facilitators with a depth of experience joining the team. Both of those
22

facilitators have since engaged in further social work education (empowerment). One of these
facilitators is the Lassen Youth Wellness program administrator as an MSW intern.
Relationships are essential because the Lassen Youth Wellness program is possible solely due to
pre-existing relationships between the clinical director and field liaisons at two schools of social
work: CSU, Chico, and CSU, Humboldt (social learning). All team members reside within the
community and embrace a mindset to serve within the rural community (cultural exchange). A
collective team that matches experience, education, and desire to serve a perceived undesirable
population through a "grow your own" model reflects rural values enhanced by education and
professional growth. The project received funding, and with consistent communication to
implement evidence-based services, success is in the making through the shift to direct support
for the caregiver population of justice impacted juveniles while providing the education
components to the juveniles.
Methodology
The prototype for Lassen Youth Wellness consists of introducing the program to the
public, understanding the participants' journey, and the implementers learning path. Lassen
Youth Wellness is on the web at https://www.lassenintervention.com/lassen-youth-wellness/.
Navigating to the Lassen Youth Wellness tab displays program descriptions and an interactive
participant UX Journey Map (https://www.lassenintervention.com/lassen-youth-wellness/#eval-
lyw). The video format guides the caregivers and juveniles through what they can expect to
experience with Lassen Youth Wellness. First, the Lassen Youth Wellness participant details the
caregiver and justice-impacted juvenile program experience through a Journey UX map
(Appendix F). The Lassen Youth Wellness Evaluation Map is a Journey UX Map (Appendix G)
for the implementers to navigate the initiation of an evaluation culture within the community.
23

The implementers receive training on the curriculum, hands-on facilitator training, weekly
supervision, and program meetings. The interns are participating in data collection and
interpretation under the direction of the clinical director.
The prototype uses a mix of low and high-fidelity elements, with each feature reflecting
the practical needs of the program components. Specifically, the service users are a vulnerable
population, demanding an avenue to connect them in a meaningful way to this caregiver-
involved intervention for justice-impacted juveniles. The short-form video is rapport building; it
appears on the website and is an intake interview component. The Lassen Youth Wellness
Participant UX Map describes a snapshot of the intervention to stakeholders, funders, and
community members. In addition, the Lassen Youth Wellness Evaluation UX Map supports the
social work interns with a process to understand the intervention, implement, and evaluate.
Lassen Youth Wellness' target user group is caregivers of justice-impacted juveniles and
the juveniles themselves. The Lassen Youth Wellness Participant UX emerged from the input of
foster parents and adults who previously participated in the juvenile justice system. With funding
and initial implementation, adaptations have continued to occur to reflect current users.
Regarding the video, the target users provided early feedback within the intake (caregivers and
juveniles), agency staff, the student peer group, and teenagers within this author's network.
The stakeholders use the Lassen Youth Wellness Participant UX Map to inform the
caregivers and juveniles about the expected experience. The map will continue to iterate with
new entrants to the program, with some updates to understand the experience and pain points
better. The caregivers responded well to the video, with some neutral space from the juveniles.
Fortunately, both groups reported a clear understanding of what the program will entail. The plan
is to seek feedback with the same juveniles in a few weeks to ascertain more specific ways to
24

improve the video. Hence, it appears the video communicates well, but it is also the desired
opportunity for rapport, so that area will continue to be under construction. The Lassen Youth
Wellness Evaluation UX Map has already helped identify nuances in data collection and is being
updated weekly in this early phase. Overall, the prototype components illustrate applied use.
Market Analysis
Populations across the fifty-eight California counties are vastly varied. In rural
communities, direct service provider resources are scarce. The competitive analysis (Appendix
D) illustrates the Lassen Youth Wellness intervention's relative advantage in considering the
array of options. The Lassen Youth Wellness landscape analysis looks at local options, other
California county programs, out-of-state approaches, and a national competitor. The local
options illustrate a lack of service providers, particularly in the defined "perpetrator" space.
Other programs within the state reveal distinctions between rural and urban environments.
Across state lines, it becomes clear that there are differences in who provides the services, such
as probation itself to behavioral health departments and independent non-profits. The national
example of Youth Villages (Grossman et al., 2010) is crucial as it highlights scale problems
across communities- indicating alignment of intervention and community is critical.
Implementation Methods
Meaningful communication has guided the project's implementation. The Lassen Youth
Wellness EPIS framework has evolved through stakeholder engagement, team discussion, and
funding requests. The framework helps support and house an evaluation culture to assess
outcomes and understand the implementation process. Araque and Weiss (2019) refer to the
importance of creating a cultural proficiency in leadership, honoring differences, and listening to
others' perspectives and knowledge. The leadership strength of Lassen Youth Wellness is a
25

participatory approach. Each team member has a defined role, yet the team converges weekly to
provide feedback across the roles. Tropman (2013) organizes executive-ship across seven core
competency areas. The current context seizes the opportunity for the juvenile decarceration
movement to gain further traction through policy (SB823) and subsequent increases in funding
streams. The initial "ask" was simply for anger management education. A challenge to the
context is that government contracts prefer non-profits versus social enterprises. Partnership and
historical working relationships transformed the context.
The leadership of Lassen Intervention practiced executive-ship and challenged the status
quo by declining to provide yet another anger management program. Lassen Intervention offered
to engage stakeholders and co-create a design to meet the community's needs. The clinical
director is spearheading executive-ship in the area of competencies. CSU, Humboldt directly
contacted the clinical director to recommend the placement of one intern due to prior experience
in collaboration. The second intern self-referred based on the reputation of the agencies'
outcomes and the existence of a clinical director.
The clinical director's unique contribution is crafting an evaluation and iterative culture
within a community with the previously limited data value. However, the primary leadership
strategy is a participatory approach. Each team member has a role yet is empowered to
collaborate across the team. Iterations occurred between the Lassen Youth Wellness team and
probation to create the intake form (Appendix H) and program goals (Appendix I). The intake
process began as a rough draft and has received feedback from the first participants (Appendix
J). Various legal and education stakeholders vetted the caregiver and juvenile confidence surveys
(Appendix K). The clinical director initially developed the per-encounter engagement self-rating
(Appendix L) as a stand-alone pre/post-encounter question. However, the program administrator
26

significantly improved the concept by placing the same question on one page, allowing the
clients to see their change in perceptions in real-time from the beginning to the end of the
encounter. The clinical director and one of the social work interns collaborated on the data input
forms for Arise-C, Arise-J, CERQ-C, CERQ-J, Confidence Survey-C, Confidence Survey-J, and
Engagement-C, Engagement-J (Appendix M). Currently, one intern has experience with data
input from a previous social service job. Both the clinical director and that intern are responsible
for data input accuracy. As the data increases, all program staff will receive training in data
interpretation. Probation desires data; however, an obstacle to address in the evaluation plan is
the importance of communicating the outcomes to a community that has long relied on the
outside (or state-level) measures to explain what is not "working." The barrier to overcome lies
in educating the community around the positives of data.
Financial Plan
Implementation is underway, as Lassen Youth Wellness has funding for FY21-22
(Appendix N). The budget submitted was $181,000 (Exhibit 1), and the award was $150,000.
While the funding differential might appear significant, the Lassen Youth Wellness team
brainstormed and devised several options to address the shortfall. First, the Lassen Intervention
CEO negotiated a more optimal rent by signing a 3-year lease for the additional space
requirements. Second, a second intern approached Lassen Intervention with eleven years of
juvenile probation experience and is an excellent fit. Through the second student intern, the
operating budget as awarded is viable. Sustainability exists due to the initial investment that
occurs in the FFYO, such as curriculum and infrastructure. In the second year of implementation,
the money not spent on the initial investments will fund salaries for the program implementers.
27

Lassen Youth Wellness is providing the interns with stipends to promote value and honor
investment into the staff.
Methods of Impact Assessment
Through partnership across the adolescents, caregivers, and justice system, Lassen Youth
Wellness will promote the psychosocial maturity development and support necessary to reduce
recidivism. The intervention merges two curriculums that are adolescently normed: Complete
ARISE Anger Management Program (Complete ARISE Anger Management Program (18 Books
- plus) – ARISE Life Skills and Staff Training (at-riskyouth.org) and Strong Teens a social-
emotional learning curriculum (https://strongkids.uoregon.edu/strongteens.html). Both
curriculums have years of evidence-based support. Specifically, the ARISE program is normed
for both genders across cultures and generalized across multiple states in lock-up and in-home
supervision settings. The caregivers and the justice-impacted juveniles will participate in the
following pre/post tests: ARISE (measures anger management beliefs and attitudes) and the
Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (measures social-emotional levels). The
participants will also complete a brief pre/post confidence survey to assess levels of perceived
self-efficacy. At each group, caregivers and juveniles complete an engagement question to
measure their feelings surrounding participation in the intervention.
Short-term Outcome Measures
The project aims to support the caregivers by elevating capacity to increase the skills
necessary to work with the justice-impacted juvenile. The caregiver essentially must attain the
same skill levels as the rehabilitative staff employed at the lock-up facilities. The specific
knowledge and skills training is for anger management and social-emotional learning education,
with trauma-informed therapeutic support. Regarding caregivers, the intervention will be
28

effective if: (1) the caregivers' exhibits understanding of the curriculum elements the children are
learning (managing their wards will be measured by pre/post report), (2) the caregivers maintain
the placement during the program, and (3) there is a decreased number of placement failures six
months after program completion. Regarding the juveniles, the intervention will be effective if:
(1) the juveniles complete the education program of six months with increased knowledge
(measured via pre/posttest), (2) the juveniles avoid further justice system involvement during the
program, and (3) the juveniles avoid further justice system involvement six months post-program
completion.
Long-term Outcome Measures
In collaboration, Lassen Youth Wellness and Lassen Probation will assess re-entry into
the justice system, post-completion marks of one, two, and five years. Data mining of existing
databases will track subsequent criminal involvement, explicitly identifying specific offense
types (violent versus non-violent) and time-lapses. Until the juveniles are eighteen, the metrics
will assess for educational and employment progress. Lassen Youth Wellness requests follow-up
collaboration with the caregivers to understand any further difficulties maintaining the juvenile
in their home. The opportunity is to receive feedback regarding what is not working (such as
runaway events, post-program) and incorporate it for future iterations. Lassen Youth Wellness
will follow up with the caregivers to solicit feedback regarding the curriculum and the extent that
it has generalized long-term into their home. Overall, long-term measurement is dependent on
adult/caregiver feedback post-intervention.
Process Measures and Lessons Learning
Creating an evaluation culture emphasizing fidelity and outcomes commenced long
before the first groups commenced on October 5, 2021. The program administrator and two
29

facilitators participated in the 20-hour facilitator training for the ARISE curriculum. The new
facilitators shadowed other groups and received feedback via the facilitator of these groups. In
addition, they have received weekly supervision with the clinical director. The Program
Administrator is responsible for the caregiver and juvenile intake questionnaires. Facilitators
solicit weekly feedback from participants regarding engagement. Each week, the team meets to
seek ways to address specific gaps identified by participants and facilitators. After a recent
group, one facilitator recognized the importance of additional brain development education with
the caregivers, specific to the impact of a child and in-utero drug exposure. The monthly
probation meeting provides an opportunity to share four weeks of education and therapeutic
participation to the first level of legal stakeholders, with reports to the judges as requested.
Lassen Youth Wellness has initiated an outcome and process evaluation plan (Appendix O). In
addition, a rotating representative from Lassen Youth Wellness will also participate in the local
Juvenile Justice Commission meetings to maintain open communication with stakeholders.
Lassen Youth Wellness maintains open communication with the Susanville Indian Rancheria,
even when none of their children are in the program. Further, the staff is involved community
members who participate in numerous awareness events and fundraisers hosted by partner
agencies, promoting critical awareness of the public's perception of the program.
Lassen Youth Wellness has a website and uses social media sietes and platforms (e.g.,
Facebook and Instagram) for marketing puposes. The Lassen Intervention website
(www.lassenintervention.com) allows viewers to "Meet the Team" of Lassen Youth Wellness
with biographies for all team members. The "Classes" tab lists the program offerings with the
Lassen Youth Wellness description located at https://www.lassenintervention.com/lassen-youth-
wellness/. A media message designed by the clinical director is available at this site for
30

community members to watch. The Lassen Intervention Facebook page and Instagram account
promote Lassen Youth Wellness. Under development is a gallery page showcasing the
community events in which team members participate.
Lassen Youth Wellness fills a gap of non-existent services for the juvenile justice
population in a rural community with scarce resources by utilizing a focused approach on
empowering the caregivers with the skills and knowledge needed to guide high-risk youth to
healthy adulthood. Lassen Youth Wellness accomplishes this by focusing on the caregiver to
close the gap identified by the Department of Juvenile Justice reform recommendations
identified as lessons learned from the 2004 Farrell consent decree (Center on Juvenile Justice and
Reform, n.d.). According to Krisberg (2014), an essential piece of resolving the DJJ reforms was
that staff require supportive relationships and training essential knowledge regarding adolescent
mental and social development. The staff must feel valued in the process of providing services to
the youth. The Lassen Youth Wellness intervention translates the word staff for caregivers in the
in-home setting. A trauma-informed therapist is a component of the intervention to support the
family unit, allowing for referral points should therapeutic needs arise in the group setting. A
limitation of the intervention is that it cannot accommodate for personality mismatches due to the
small sample size. Should difficulties occur within this context, Lassen Youth Wellness will
collaborate with Lassen County Behavioral Health and Lassen County Probation to determine
alternate treatments. Additionally, some caregivers and juveniles may exceed the scope of the
intervention (safety). A last ethical concern is that while Lassen Youth Wellness is a service
provider designed to support families, inevitably, the intervention is accountable to Lassen
County Probation, which can be prohibitive to rapport building and relationship reparative after
an undesirable reporting event.
31

Conclusions, actions, and implications
Lassen Youth Wellness addresses a portion of the Social Work Grand Challenge of
Achieving Equal Opportunity and Justice in Juvenile Justice by providing an intervention to
stabilize the adolescents within themselves, their home life, and the community by providing
them a safe way to do so. Lassen Youth Wellness achieves this through parallel education in a
family-inclusive healing model for caregivers of justice-impacted juveniles and the juveniles
themselves. Focusing the intervention on caregivers to become skilled in the anger management
and social-emotional learning needs of the high-risk juveniles is an instrumental bridge that, if
successful, would inform the segmented services that more traditional Wraparound frameworks
currently deliver. The Capstone Project leverages fiscal prudence in the partnership with
probation and local universities (BSW/MSW interns) to deliver diversion interventions for in-
home implementation (lowest level of care), addressing real-time family engagement. The long-
term belief is that through educational intervention, the caregivers can provide adult guidance to
the adolescents to promote self-exit from a justice system cycle and avert prison.
The implications are to unleash an inclusive partnership between the justice system, the
caregivers, and the justice-impacted juveniles to promote high-quality services. The rural
environment is severely restricted with service providers and lacks the benefits of an extensive
county system's economies of scale. By leveraging an educational model that combines clinical
direction with skilled facilitators, the intervention is a creative, practical solution to address the
scarcity of resources. Limitations exist within the team's small constellation that relies on social
work interns, which requires internal capital (field instructor requires an MSW). Additionally,
the program's start-up is possible due to a pre-existing infrastructure that leveraged existing
partnerships with the adult probation system. Lassen County Probation has expressed that the
32

three neighboring counties inquired into procuring a service provider (Lassen Youth Wellness).
The neighboring counties are currently using the SB823 funds solely for lock-up contracts with
the larger counties. An additional limitation to scaling to other rural localities is that Lassen
Youth Wellness is a small team built from practitioners with significant partnership history.
Options to address this limitation might be sending a mobile team to neighboring counties or
training identified community partners with the Lassen Youth Wellness model. Ethical
limitations to training others involve managing fidelity and practitioner commitment.
Lassen Youth Wellness intends to continue to build additional supports for the
intervention and strengthen human capital. Lassen Youth Wellness seeks to transition by July 1,
2022, to a private non-profit arm of Lassen Intervention which paves the way to apply for
additional funds to add services to the program. Also, once the non-profit conversion occurs, the
intent is to meet with stakeholders across the three surrounding counties to determine the
different resource needs. The human capital endeavor is ongoing by maintaining the investment
in staff and nurturing relationships with the local universities who collaborated with the
intervention to provide the BSW interns. The current interns will be poised to operate the
program independently within two years and will no longer require extensive support from the
clinical director. The program will gain sustainability by shifting funding to the MSW interns as
employees versus the cost of the clinical director. In examining opportunities for scale, the aim is
for Lassen Youth Wellness to either train others in implementing the model or potentially deploy
a mobile team once a week to provide the services. Data and metrics will be pivotal in assessing
efficacy as Lassen Youth Wellness partners with stakeholders and seeks to co-present the
intervention with Lassen County Probation to the Juvenile Justice Commission.

33

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract The Capstone Project supports Achieving Equal Opportunity and Justice in Juvenile Justice by seizing a unique challenge created through California SB 823 (Juvenile justice realignment: Office of Youth and Community Restoration). Individual counties must seek to iterate creative solutions tailored to their culture and population that a mass state juvenile incarceration system attempted yet failed. In a collective effort, Lassen Youth Wellness and Lassen County Probation aspire to support caregivers of justice-impacted juveniles, provide accessible, evidence-based emotion/anger management capacities and engage in an evaluation culture. The probation department identifies placement stabilization as the crux to juveniles completing their probation terms. The proposed Capstone Project seeks to marry the historically identified disparity that human service agencies have noted for years: Child Welfare serves parents, and Juvenile Probation serves children. Lassen Youth Wellness proposes an intervention to serve both populations through a condensed wraparound framework to foster safe growth and facilitate the emergence of improved communication for families to strengthen and build a healthy relationship with their justice-impacted child. The theoretical frameworks guiding this project uses systems theory, self-efficacy theory, cultural exchange model, and the EPIS framework for implementation. Through this structure, Lassen Youth Wellness has implemented concurrent family services for caregivers and justice-impacted juveniles to increase the skills needed to promote healthy outcomes. All participants experience real-time skill-building to transition from detention centers to the home environment. The proposal presents a disruptive intervention of a "wicked" problem in Lassen County's Juvenile Justice System.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Cunningham, Janet Alicia (author)

Core Title Lassen youth wellness

School Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

Degree Doctor of Social Work

Degree Program Social Work

Degree Conferral Date 2021-12

Publication Date 05/07/2022

Defense Date 11/23/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag caregivers,equal opportunity,justice-impacted juveniles,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Smith-Maddox, Renee (committee chair), Fatouros, Cassandra (committee member)

Creator Email janet@lassenintervention.com,janetbrownlcsw@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111296816

Unique identifier UC111296816

Document Type Capstone project

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Cunningham, Janet Alicia

Type texts

Source 20220509-usctheses-batch-940 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu