Confronting the Workforce Crisis: How Do We Recruit, Retain, and Support Staff Working with Young People with Complex Needs?

Posted in Announcements

From high turnover and low morale to recruitment and retention difficulties, youth-serving agencies are facing a staffing crisis that calls for urgent transformation. Our national Reimagining the Youth Justice Workforce Innovation Network initiative was created to design, test, and share solutions to these challenges. As we conclude the formal programming this year, we will be starting to share successful strategies in a new series of Innovation Network Highlight briefs .

We are excited to premiere the first of these briefs that spotlights the strategic, data-driven approach taken by the Ohio Department of Youth Services (DYS). One of the most innovative contributions is their creation of a “functional vacancy” metric that goes beyond traditional vacancy counts. It factors in unfilled positions, staff on leave, new hires in training, and those in on-the-job training who are present in the facility but not yet working independently.

Read more about Ohio’s innovative, data-driven approach in our new Innovation Network Highlight brief!