Current through Reg. 50, No. 187; September 24, 2024
(1)
Trauma Responsive Residential Environment. A residential
commitment program shall establish an environment that is conducive to the
effective delivery of delinquency interventions and treatment services. This
environment shall promote and reinforce community values by giving youth
opportunities to assume the responsibilities and experience the benefits of
being part of a community. The program shall establish a residential
environment that is physically and emotionally safe, and incorporates trauma
responsive practices. The program shall have sufficient space and environmental
features to allow for effective educational services, medical, mental health
and substance abuse services, and general programming. Every effort shall be
made to decrease noise and increase design elements that best utilize the space
appropriately, improve stress management and self-regulation.
(a) The program shall promote a trauma
responsive residential environment by program leadership and staff
demonstrating practices that embrace the core principles of a trauma responsive
program including physical and emotional safety, trust, choice, collaboration,
empowerment and cultural and linguistic responsivity. The practice of these
core principles shall be evident in development of new policies, in review and
modification of existing policies and at all primary points of contact with
youth.
(b) The program shall
include universal screening for traumatic stress in all youth. The assessments
must be designed to help identify traumatic stress symptoms and self-regulation
skills.
(2)
Behavior Management System (BMS). Consistent with its approach to
delinquency interventions and treatment services, a residential commitment
program shall establish a behavior management system that is responsive to the
unique characteristics of the program's population. A program's behavior
management system shall be designed to motivate a youth to choose behaviors
which are personally fulfilling, productive, and socially acceptable while
minimizing destructive or unsafe behaviors. In addition, the system shall
assist the youth in the development of skills necessary to manage difficult
emotions such as anger, depression, and anxiety, while also teaching the youth
skills to help them function effectively within the program. When the program's
BMS includes Behavioral Analysis Services as defined in chapter 63N-1, F.A.C.,
such services must be provided as set forth in that rule.
(a) A residential commitment program's
behavior management system shall be described in writing and designed to:
1. Promote safety, respect, fairness, and
protection of rights within the residential environment;
2. Provide constructive discipline and a
system of positive and negative logical consequences to encourage youth to meet
expectations for behavior;
3.
Provide opportunities for positive reinforcement and recognition for
accomplishments and positive behaviors at a minimum ratio of 4:1 positive to
negative consequences;
4. Promote
socially acceptable means for youth to meet their needs;
5. Include a process that accommodates the
emotional and developmental capacity of individual youth by addressing the
following:
a. Staff shall explain to the youth
the reason that they did not achieve their treatment or behavioral
goals;
b. The youth is given an
opportunity to explain his or her behavior;
c. Staff and the youth discuss the behavior's
impact on others, reasonable reparations for harm caused to others, and
alternative acceptable behaviors and coping strategies;
6. Promote dialogue and peaceful conflict
resolution;
7. Minimize separation
of youth from the general population;
8. Provide ongoing oversight and training of
direct-care staff; and
9. Ensure
common behavior management classroom expectations are agreed to by the program
director and the director of the educational program and contains, at a
minimum, the following:
a. Assessment of youth
needs
b. Direct care staff's
role/participation in the classroom.
c. Protocols for addressing disruptive
classroom behavior.
d.
Training/orientation at least annually and within 30 days of hire for all
educational and facility staff working in the classrooms. The training must
include the behavior management classroom expectations, de-escalation
techniques, crisis intervention procedures, and mandatory reporting
requirements of child abuse, abandonment, and neglect as outlined in section
39.201, F.S.
(b) A residential commitment program's
behavior management system shall not:
1. Be
used solely to increase a youth's length of stay;
2. Be used to deny a youth basic rights or
services to include regular meals, clothing, sleep, physical or mental health
services, educational services physical exercise, correspondence, and
visitation from his or her parent(s), guardian, or supportive person(s), and
contact with an attorney of record, JPO, clergy and, if applicable, the
dependency case manager;
3. Promote
the use of group discipline;
4.
Allow youth to sanction other youth; or
5. Include disciplinary confinement wherein a
youth is isolated in a locked room as discipline for
misbehavior.
(3)
Grievance Process. A
residential commitment program shall establish written procedures specifying
the process for youth to grieve actions of program staff and conditions or
circumstances involving the violation or denial of basic rights. These
procedures shall establish each youth's right to grieve and ensure that all
youth are treated fairly, respectfully, without discrimination, and that their
rights are protected.
(a) The procedures shall
address each of the following phases of the youth grievance process, specifying
timeframes that promote timely feedback to youth and rectification of
situations or conditions when grievances are determined to be valid or
justified.
1. Informal phase wherein the youth
attempts to resolve the complaint or condition with staff on duty at the time
of the grieved situation;
2. Formal
phase wherein the youth submits a written grievance that requires a written
response from a supervisory staff person; and
3. Appeal phase wherein the youth may appeal
the outcome of the formal phase to the program director or
designee.
(b) Program
staff shall be trained on the program's youth grievance process and
procedures.
(c) Program staff shall
explain the grievance process to youth during their program orientation and
shall post the written procedures throughout the facility for easy access by
youth.
(d) The program shall
provide grievance forms and accompanying instructions at locations throughout
the facility so they are readily accessible to youth. When a youth requests
assistance in filing a grievance, program staff shall assist the youth as
needed.
(e) The program shall
maintain documentation on each youth grievance and its outcome in a centralized
location for at least one year.
(4)
Visitation. A residential
commitment program shall develop a policy and procedure to provide visitation
for youth and shall address the following:
(a)
Program security and the safety of youth, staff and visitors;
(b) Designated visitation schedule that is
provided to each youth's parent(s), guardian, or supportive person(s) and is
readily available to other authorized visitors, as well as reasonable
accommodations in response to parent(s)', guardians', or supportive person(s)
request for alternate visitation arrangements;
(c) Designated visitation areas and staff
supervision during visitation;
(d)
Identification of authorized visitors to include the youth's parent(s),
guardian, supportive person(s), spouse, attorney of record, JPO, clergy, and
others concerned with the youth's rehabilitation and treatment. To facilitate
family reunification, the program shall consider requests for alternate
visitation arrangements from a youth's parent(s), guardian, or supportive
person(s), unless such contact is specifically prohibited by a court order,
against the youth's wishes, or poses a safety or security threat. The program
shall not allow visitation by any co-defendant in the youth's current offense,
anyone prohibited by court order to have contact with the youth, anyone the
youth is unwilling to receive as a visitor, or anyone whose presence or
behavior during a prior visitation posed a safety or security threat;
(e) Verification of the identity of visitors
by requiring a form of photo identification except in the case of children or
siblings of the youth who are accompanied by a parent or legal
guardian;
(f) Documentation of all
visitation to include:
1. The visitor's
signature, the date, and the times of entry and exit;
2. The name of any visitor denied entry and
the date, time, and reason for denial;
(g) Measures to prevent the introduction of
contraband into the program to include:
1.
Written notification to visitors before their entry into the facility that
their person and any packages may be subject to search and that possession of
illegal contraband could be subject to legal action;
2. Mandatory electronic search of visitors
entering high-risk and maximum-risk programs and optional electronic search of
visitors entering non-secure programs;
3. Frisk search of a visitor by a staff
person of the same sex when reasonable belief exists that the visitor is
attempting to introduce contraband or otherwise compromise the security of the
facility (e.g., staff witnesses unauthorized physical contact indicating an
attempt to conceal);
4. Search of
packages or other items for youth conducted in the presence of the
visitor;
5. Prohibition of visitors
bringing their personal possessions into the facility unless the program
director or his or her designee makes an exception for a visitor needing a
documented prescription medication or an adaptive device due to a
disability;
6. Frisk search of a
youth in a high-risk or maximum-risk program prior to the youth's exit from the
visitation area;
7. Upon reasonable
documented suspicion that contraband has been passed to a youth, a full-body
visual inspection is authorized at high-risk or maximum-risk programs;
and
8. Search of the visitation
area by staff after all visits are concluded.
(h) Termination of the visit if the youth or
visitor violates the program rules, becomes loud, disorderly, or visibly angry,
engages or attempts to engage in sexual contact or activity, is physically
aggressive, or otherwise poses an unsafe situation.
(5)
Stakeholder Access: All
stakeholders must sign and abide by the department's Stakeholder and Media
Confidentiality Agreement (RS 100, July 2018), which is incorporated by
reference,
http://www.flrules.org/Gateway/reference.asp?No=Ref-10389,
and is available by contacting: DJJ, Office of Residential Services, 2737
Centerview Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32399.
(a)
The following stakeholders are authorized to visit juvenile residential
commitment programs operated or overseen by the department: between the hours
of 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m.:
1.
Governor;
2. Cabinet
Member;
3. Member of the
Legislature;
4. State
Attorney;
5. Public
Defender.
(b) A request
for an after-hours tour between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. must be
submitted to and approved by the Assistant Secretary for Residential Services
at least 14 days prior to the tour. Stakeholders taking an after-hours tour
will not be permitted access to any areas where youth are sleeping.
(c) All stakeholders entering high-risk and
maximum-risk programs are subject to electronic searches. Electronic searches
of stakeholders entering non-secure programs are optional, as outlined in the
program's operating procedures.
(6)
News Media Tours. Permission
for visits by bona fide news media representatives shall not be unreasonably
withheld. It shall be the responsibility of the news media representatives
requesting the visitation to present to the Office of Communications evidence
sufficient to establish that such person is a bona fide news media
representative and to provide the information sufficiently in advance that it
may be verified.
(a) News media
representatives consist of persons whose principal employment is gathering and
reporting news for a:
1. Radio or television
program whose primary purpose is news reporting for a licensee of the Federal
Communications Commission;
2.
Newspaper reporting general interest information news and circulated to the
public in the community where it is published;
3. News magazine that has a national
circulation, is sold by mail subscriptions, or on newsstands to the general
public; or
4. National or
international news service.
(b) News media tours of a juvenile
residential commitment facilities shall be pre-arranged with the Office of
Communications at least five (5) working days prior to arrival. The following
conditions apply:
1. News media
representatives shall be required to provide news station ID and two verifiable
contacts for the media group they represent. Phone numbers for these contacts
must also be provided. If the contacts provided do not confirm the
representative's association with the respective media group, the
representative shall be required to provide two additional contacts. If such
contacts do not confirm the representative's association with the respective
media group, the tour shall be cancelled and the media representative shall not
be permitted future tours.
2.
Representatives of news media visiting a facility are subject to electronic
search as set out in subsection (4), above.
3. News media representatives must be
escorted by staff. Random access not specific to the purpose of the tour is
prohibited.
4. During an emergency,
news media representatives will be restricted to a designated area identified
by the facility administrator or designee.
5. Media members are limited to two (2)
members.
6. Attorneys, doctors,
youth's family members, and victims or victim family members may not accompany
media representatives on their visits.
7. Media representatives must provide
identification upon entry into the juvenile residential facility.
8. Interviews and photographs of youth or
staff shall not be permitted.
9.
Photography and video making equipment is prohibited.
10. Privacy rights of youth shall be observed
by the media. No movie films, television tapes, or recordings may be made of
the juvenile involved.
11. Media
representatives shall not be given access to juveniles on any type of
observation defined in rules 63N-1.00951, 63N-1.00952, and subsection
63E-7.107(14), F.A.C.
12. The
Florida Department of Juvenile Justice or contracted provider employees are not
authorized to sign film crew or media location releases.
13. Tours are authorized between the hours of
8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays, provided the
facility administrator or designee determines that such tours would not impair
or disrupt the normal operations or security of the facility and would not
endanger the safety of the visitor.
14. No part of the residential commitment
program may be filmed.
15. Foreign
Press. In addition to all of the above, foreign press members must provide
criminal history clearance from the official criminal history registry of their
native country. Contact information for a representative from the agency that
maintains that registry must also be provided. A legible copy of the foreign
media representative's passport must be submitted to the Office of
Communications prior to the tour for approval.
16. All news media representatives must sign
and abide by the department's Stakeholder and Media Confidentiality Agreement
(RS 100, July 2018), which is incorporated in subsection (5),
above.
Rulemaking Authority 985.64, 985.601(3)(a), 985.6885(4) FS.
Law Implemented 985.601(3)(a), 985.03(44), 985.441, 985.6885 FS.
New 5-30-19.
