Family Court Systems–Promoting Positive Outcomes for Youth

What is the Family Court System? 

The family court system is a specialized branch of the judiciary that handles cases involving family-related issues, particularly those that affect minors. It aims to resolve conflicts in ways that prioritize the best interests of minors while protecting parental rights. 

Family courts address a range of matters, including child custody, child support, domestic violence, adoption, and juvenile delinquency cases. For juveniles, family courts specifically handle offenses like delinquency, shoplifting, assault, or drug-related charges and work to determine the most appropriate interventions. The family court system plays a crucial role in resolving disputes, offering rehabilitation services or sentencing, and the decision from the family court system can affect the rest of a minor’s life. 

Among those who commit offenses as juveniles, a substantial number will continue to reoffend into adulthood. According to the National Institute of Justice, roughly 50% of young people who engage in serious criminal behavior like violent crimes as juveniles will later engage in adult criminal activity. 

To reduce this rate and create an environment for rehabilitation and long-term success, we rely on resources like the family court system to serve the minor population through tactics like diversion, deflection and responsible sentencing.  

Diversion and Deflection Strategy 

Outside of court proceedings, the family court system supports juvenile offenders through diversion and deflection programs. Diversion programs offer alternatives to formal court processing, such as community service, counseling or educational programs, aiming to keep young people out of the justice system while still addressing behaviors. This allows minors to receive the support services they need without creating a mark on their permanent record that will make it more difficult to navigate education, employment and legal opportunities for the rest of their lives. 

For less serious offenses, family court systems can use deflection strategies to redirect juveniles to social services, mental health care or mentoring programs rather than subjecting to criminal charges. Deflection programs in family court systems are an effective method to divert juveniles away from the formal criminal justice process and set them up for long-term success. This approach allows minors to receive individualized rehabilitation support and gives capacity to law enforcement and the family court system to better serve more serious offenses. 

Diversion and deflection programs help reduce recidivism and provide the youth with the resources they need for rehabilitation and reintegration into society. 

Community-Based vs. Government-Based Deflection Programs 

Deflection programs can either be funded directly by government agencies or implemented through partnerships with community-based organizations. Both approaches aim to reduce recidivism and help juveniles avoid the long-term consequences of criminal records.  

Government-Funded Deflection Programs: Funded by federal, state or local government bodies, government-funded deflection programs are often part of larger justice system reforms. These programs are generally designed to serve a wide population and may be standardized across regions or states. They tend to focus on formalized interventions such as court-mandated counseling, probation, or educational programs. These programs are subject to structured oversight and can provide stability and resources with consistent funding. 

Community-Based Organization Partnerships: Due to a combination of limited government funding and an engaged network of community programs, deflection programs often rely on partnerships between family courts and local nonprofits or social service providers. These programs typically focus on providing more personalized support tailored to the unique needs of the juvenile, including mentorship, family counseling or substance abuse treatment. Since these programs are community-driven, they are often more adaptable and can offer more holistic, wraparound services with a focus on restorative justice and community reintegration. These organizations rely on a combination of government and local funding and may not independently be able to offer the same level of standardized oversight as government-funded initiatives. 

“As a community-based organization, we believe that collaboration between public services and private community organizations allows for better services for young people. By engaging in a combination of public and private funding and partnerships, we can build capacity for our public services and community organizations to create more positive outcomes for at-risk youth.”  

  • Gary Jones, KC 360 Manager, KC Common Good 

Success in Regional Family Court Systems and Support Organizations 

With nationwide attention on juvenile delinquency and the rising number of young people in detention centers in the 1960s and 1970s, diversion programs became more prominent in jurisdictions across the country. A pivotal moment in 1974 came with the passing of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Acts, providing federal funding to support the deinstitutionalization of juvenile offenders and encouraged alternatives to detention, including diversion programs. 

Influenced by a growing awareness that court involvement can often exacerbate a juvenile’s problems, and the recognition that involving local communities, schools, and social services could be more effective in preventing future crime, deflection strategies became more prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. 

These strategies have seen historical success across the U.S., and programs in some of the country’s largest cities continue to use similar programs today to promote youth community engagement, future growth and ultimately peace. Programs like these give us a framework for creating similar strategies to impact real change in our local communities. 

BUILD | Chicago, Illinois 

BUILD, Broader Urban Involvement & Leadership Development, is a nationally respected gang intervention, violence prevention, and youth development organization based on Chicago’s West Side. Since its beginnings in1969, BUILD has developed deflection programming to inspire hope mentor young people from Chicago’s neighborhoods facing system challenges. 

Today, BUILD works with more than 2,500 youth each year. BUILD works closely with the Chicago Police Department and the Chicago Family Court System to provide mentorship, prevention and intervention services to at-risk youth.  

KC360 representatives visited BUILD Chicago in 2025 to learn more about implementation of public and private programs to support the family court system.
KC360 representatives visited BUILD Chicago in 2025 to learn more about implementation of public and private programs to support the family court system.

Good Life Youth Foundation | Syracuse, New York 

In Syracuse, New York, home to the highest concentration of poverty among African Americans and Latinos, the streets can be a means of survival for teens. The Good Life Youth Foundation is making noise using hip-hop culture as its stage to reach these at-risk youth. The organization provides programs to support mentorship, education, employment and entrepreneurship.  

The Good Life Youth Foundation has seen success with the you population through its street teams, education programs and HipHop-preneurship program. 80-87% of participating youth do not recidivate and get re-arrested, 85% of participating youth get reconnected to education, and program participants see increased employment. These results show clear evidence that these strategies are effective for changing behavior in young people for the better, dramatically reducing likelihood of recidivism compared to the general population. 

14th Judicial District Family and Juvenile Court | Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana 

Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice Services provides rehabilitative services and secure confinement to juvenile offenders under 18 years of age. The office also provides early intervention programs for families with youth at risk of entering the criminal justice system, and coordination of services designed to increase family functioning. Each year, the office serves more than 2000 young people, ages 5-18, and their families. 

What Can We Do in Kansas City? 

In Kansas City, we have the opportunity to expand upon the amazing work that our local Jackson County Family Court has been doing for decades in partnership with local law enforcement. We can learn from other cities like Chicago, Syracuse and Calcasieu Parish and implement similar strategies, incorporating community organizations as a solution to effectively serve our youth and promote a positive future for Kansas City. 

By coming together as a community, we can both support the work they are doing and challenge the status quo by funding our family court system and independent community organizations. When we fund the system put together to take care of young people, we build capacity to support more comprehensive and effective programs. Those programs are shaping the future of Kansas City, and you can be a part of the movement.  

If you are interested in learning more about the many ways community organizations are coming together to support each other’s work, build capacity to help more people and partner with our local government law enforcement and judicial systems, contact us today 

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