Building Capacity for Change within the Juvenile Legal System: A Structured Peer Mentorship Model

Juvenile legal system practitioners often have trouble implementing empirically informed policies and practices. Peer-to-peer coaching, a strategy that has been leveraged to implement novel interventions in other domains, might also serve as a beneficial approach to juvenile legal reform. In this paper, we describe the Peer-to-Peer Technical Assistance Mentorship (P2P-TAM) model, an effort to systematize this strategy for juvenile legal system practitioners. We also illustrate the practical application of the P2P-TAM model by describing how it was used to implement developmentally responsive graduated response principles in Pennsylvania as part of probation transformation efforts. Implementation outcome data from Pennsylvania indicate the model is both feasible and acceptable to peer mentors and mentorship recipients. Finally, we provide recommendations for practitioners considering application of this model to their own reform efforts and consider future directions for model implementation and modification.