John Jay University: Enriching a criminal justice fellowship

Category
Professional Trainings, Social Impact Strategy
About This Project

 

Building student insight into a fellowship for emerging criminal justice leaders.

 

Committed to exploring the many dimensions of justice, The John Jay College of Criminal Justice seeks to spur innovation and improve practice in the reentry field. The Institute’s Pinkerton Fellowship Initiative (PFI) places students in forensic mental health counseling clinics and youth justice organizations, building the next generation of reentry leaders. In order to better understand how the fellowship could continue creating valuable opportunities for students, PFI staff sought a means of gathering student and administrator input on the program to strengthen the program for future cohorts.

 

OUR STRATEGY

 

Working with PFI staff to understand need, organizational goals, and context, TYTHE developed a replicable, hands-on feedback workshops to uncover both undergraduate and graduate student priorities regarding program structure and culture, professional development opportunities, and academic content. The workshops provided opportunities for group and individual input, using TYTHE’s human-centered and collaborative insight gathering methods to ensure an accurate gauge of student and faculty need. Following the workshops, TYTHE synthesized information into a comprehensive report for the PFI network.

 

THE OUTCOME

 

A Guide for Fellowship programming

The collaborative insight gathering process equipped PFI with actionable short- and long-term recommendations for incorporating student voice in coming years and continue building leaders in the reentry field.  The final report highlighted themes, identified opportunity, and clarified student desires, and was widely distributed within the PFI’s network.

 

Building an Open Conversation

 

Collaborative feedback sessions provided insight into fellows’ needs and opportunities to program administrators, setting the stage for future conversations regarding the fellowship’s direction and paying more attention to student needs. PFI has adopted TYTHE’s human-centered approach in evaluating other aspects of their program, building their capacity to foster student development.

 


 

Client: John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Prisoner Reentry Institute

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Collaborators: Kristina Drury, Grace Moore

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Year: 2016

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