Provide TTA Assistance in response to a request from the Arlington County Commonwealth Attorney's Office. TTA focus will center on improving criminal justice outcomes for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities by providing training and associated resources to Arlington criminal justice system and community stakeholders to increase awareness and understanding of the issues that lie at the intersection of disabilities and the criminal legal system. Key stakeholder groups will include prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, correctional staff, law enforcement, 911 call operators, and probation services as well as self-advocates and community organizations supporting persons with disabilities.
Update (July-December 2021): Hosted two trainings that included breakout sessions using a hypothetical fact pattern and then two trainings to apply the methodology introduced. The second training included "comfort kits" and the audience learned a variety of items that can be used to connect with different sensory inputs. The kits included material to engage oral stimulus (sensory chews), visual focus (bubble timers), breathing (pinwheels), sound reduction (headphones) and tactile input and focus (pop fidgets). 113 individuals registered for the program. We plan to host a training for law enforcement and prosecutors in the coming months.
Update (January- June 2022): Preliminary report has been drafted and some ongoing discussions of developing a system intercept model for persons with IDD. APA also completed a training related to IDD with prosecutors and law enforcement.
Update (July -Dec. 2022): Report is complete and undergoing final editing.
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Host kick off meeting with core stakeholder groups to discuss primary areas of interest.
Based on identified interests of group from kick off meeting develop an MOU that outlines services to be provided by Grant Partners and TTA recipients
Develop training curriculum including identifying topics, speakers, and methods of delivery.
Identify subject matter experts who can assist in developing training and related materials
Developed a three-part training series for community and legal system stakeholders. Agenda is complete.
Discussion of the Arlington Disability and Criminal Justice Coalition mission, education on legal requirements such as the ADA, general education on working with persons with disabilities with an emphasis on developmental disabilities, basic education on methods for increasing agency for persons with disabilities who interact with the legal system through the use of supported decision making and advanced directives. Training included live web-based lectures and small group activities. The training included roughly 4.5 hours of training time, and last from 12:30pm to 5:30pm ET on June 3, 2021. 117 individuals registered for the program with more than 75 persons attending the live program. 2 of the registrants were federal employees.
The training was recorded and the video content is being made available for a larger audience through the grant's website.
In the second training, attendees focused on learning about language impairments, examining some of the myths and misconceptions about people with disabilities, and learning ways to increase identification of persons who may have a disability (with an emphasis on those with developmental disabilities.) The training included presentations and small group work, with small groups co-facilitated by persons with disabilities. Over 240 people from 15 different states registered for the program, with 129 people attend the program during its live showing. 2 of the attendees were federal employees. The training included roughly 4 hours of educational content, and ran from 12:30pm to 5:00pm EST on June 10, 2021. 2 of those individuals were federal employees.
This training continues in our mission of identifying the ways PWD are impacted by the criminal legal system as victims, witnesses, and defendants. Program leaders will discuss the goals and format of the day’s programming, drawing up the Arlington DCJS mission statement, shared values and goals work of earlier small groups. We will accomplish this through further small group discussion and speaker presentations. These small groups will examine ways in which the legal system can improve its accessibility for persons with disabilities, build collaborations, and connect with communities.
This session is limited to Arlington and adjacent county stakeholders only.
We created a pre-program survey to help us learn more about the current knowledge and experience of attendees.
We created a post-program survey to determine whether attendees gained new and useful information from this training. Evaluations also helped us plan the second and third parts of this program.
Survey Results (all reported on a scale of 1 to 5 points with 5 points representing the highest score and 1 point the lowest score)
100% of respondents rated the program useful to extremely useful
100% of respondents assessed their learning experience as "gained some knowledge" or "knowledge increased considerably" (4.13 weighted average)
88% of respondents indicated that they are at least fairly likely to use their what they learned from this training at work (4.13 weighted average)
100% of respondents indicated that they are at least fairly likely to share what they learned from this training with colleagues at work (4.25 weighted average)
100% of respondents rated the quality of the program as great or excellent (4.38 weighted average)
100% of respondents rated the quality of speakers as great or excellent (4.43 weighted average)
We created a post-program survey to determine whether attendees gained new and useful information from this training. Evaluations also helped us plan the third part of this program.
Survey Results: (all reported on a scale of 1 to 5 points with 5 points representing the highest score and 1 point the lowest score)
100% of respondents rated the program useful to extremely useful (4.09 weighted average)
100% of respondents assessed their learning experience as "gained some knowledge" to "knowledge increased considerably" (4.09 weighted average)
95% of respondents indicated that they are at least fairly likely to use their what they learned from this training at work (4.35 weighted average)
95% of respondents indicated that they are at least fairly likely to share what they learned from this training with colleagues at work (4.43 weighted average)
100% of respondents rated the quality of the program as good to excellent (4.77 weighted average)
100% of respondents rated the quality of speakers as good to excellent (4.73 weighted average)
We plan to create a post-program survey to determine whether attendees gained new and useful information from this training. Evaluations will also help us plan future programs.
Please respond to the Performance Metrics below. The Performance Metrics questions are based on the TTA Type indicated in the General Information section of the TTA.
Please submit a signed letter of support from your agency’s executive or other senior staff member. The letter can be emailed to or uploaded with this request. The letter should be submitted on official letterhead and include the following information:
- General information regarding the request for TTA services, i.e., the who, what, where, when, and why.
- The organizational and/or community needs specific to the request for TTA services.
- The benefits or anticipated outcomes from the receipt of TTA services.
By submitting this application to BJA NTTAC, I understand that upon approval of this application for TTA, the requestor agrees to keep BJA NTTAC informed of any circumstances that may impact the delivery of the TTA, including changes in the date of the event, event cancellation, or difficulties communicating with the assigned TTA provider.
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