Helping Michigan Improve Services for Justice-Involved Youth
Overview
Communities across Michigan are working to improve outcomes for young people involved in or at risk of entering the justice system. State leaders needed a better way to understand which youth-serving programs—including diversion, prevention, and treatment initiatives—were succeeding, where additional support was needed, and how investments could have the greatest impact.
Challenge: Measuring Impact Across Programs
Michigan funds a wide range of juvenile justice initiatives, including diversion, prevention, treatment, and system-improvement programs. Many grantees operated with varying levels of evaluation capacity and data collection expertise, making it difficult to measure outcomes consistently, demonstrate impact, and identify practices that could be expanded or replicated.
Solution: Evaluation Support and Capacity Building
As the independent evaluator for Michigan's Title II grant program, Altarum provides evaluation support and technical assistance to organizations across the state. We help grantees develop logic models and evaluation plans, strengthen data collection efforts, measure outcomes, and use findings to strengthen programs and demonstrate results. Our team also provides training and technical assistance tailored to the needs of individual organizations.
Outcome: Better Information for Better Programs
The project has strengthened evaluation capacity across participating organizations while providing state leaders with better information to guide program and funding decisions. Findings have been translated into reports, briefs, case studies, and promising-practice resources that support learning throughout Michigan's juvenile justice system.