Yvonne Byrd, director of the Montpelier Community Justice Center, Karen Vastine, the community justice
coordinator in Burlington,
and Marc Wennberg, director of the St. Alban’s Community Justice Center, explain how volunteers help craft restorative
responses to crime and conflict in Vermont.

ROBERT V. WOLF:
Hi, I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation, and today I’m lucky to have
three guests from Vermont, all of whom are involved with community driven justice centers.

With
me is Yvonne Byrd, director of the Montpelier Community Justice Center, and Karen Vastine, who is the community justice
coordinator in Burlington, and Mark Wennberg, who is the director of the St. Albans Community Justice Center.

Nice
to have you all here.

ALL: Thank you, nice to be here.

WOLF:
So your work in creating and running some of Vermont’s 15 community justice centers has made you guys experts
in involving the community in the delivery of justice. What is a community justice center. Yvonne, I thought you
might want to answer that.

YVONNE BYRD: The community justice center
is charged with delivering restorative responses to conflict and crime, and a restorative response would be basically
having the people involved, with the support of community, come up with the best, the most positive resolution to
a negative situation.

WOLF: Why involve the community in the first
place, Karen?

KAREN VASTINE: Well, I wonder too if it’s just
important to add that victims are a very important component of our community and that they are also involved in
restorative justice. As a matter of fact, it’s an opportunity for the offender to make direct amends to the
victim, if the victim so chooses to be engaged in that way.

And I believe that, in terms of involving
community members in restorative justice and helping to hold low level offenders accountable, or any kind of offenders
accountable, that what it’s about is empowering your community. And I think that it brings the community also
closer to the offender.

So one thing that we know is that if somebody is in isolation, that if
they don’t feel connected to their community, that they are less likely to change their behavior. So having
the community members involved actually shows the participant or the offender that there’s a reason for caring
and wanting to change their behavior. And I think, also, that it helps to link them in a more positive, more meaningful
way to their community if they don’t already have that linkage.

WOLF:
Also, maybe we can be a little more specific about how the community is, in fact, involved in the reparative justice
panels. So maybe Mark can just give a brief description of how, how they work and explain how the community is involved?

MARC WENNBERG: So restorative justice panels or restorative boards
receive referrals from multiple sources. It could be their pre-charge from the police or the state’s attorney,
or post-adjudication directly from the judge or the probation or parole department.

The reparative
panel/ restorative justice board is volunteer-driven, volunteer-led, although there are staff present at the meetings,
in most cases, where, working with the offender and if the victim wants to participate, the victim as well, we identify
what happened, who was affected by what happened, how were they affected, what do they need for the harm to be repaired,
and who’s responsibility is it to repair this harm, as well as what is this person going to do so that something
like this doesn’t happen again? So how are they taking concrete changes in their own life?

They
collectively, and in a consensus fashion, develop a reparative contract, which is a set up specific activities that
the offender is going to go through, is going to complete, in order to fulfill their contract agreement.

And
they typically, typically have about 90 days to complete that, at which time they come back, they meet again with
the group, and talk about what they’ve learned from the process, demonstrate the specific achievables that they
were asked to do, and then they’re at least finished with our aspect of the restorative process.

WOLF:
And what’s a typical sentence? I suppose it depends on the offense.

WENNBERG:
It’s not so much a sentence as an agreement. Often it involves, perhaps, a letter of apology, perhaps a project
that helps them to get a better understanding of how they affected either the victim or the community.

Sometimes
the victim will specifically ask for something that they need from the process. Sometimes it’s community service.
It could be a creative project as well that taps into the offender’s creative abilities.

WOLF:
And are these all low-level offenses or do they cover the gamut?

BYRD:
I guess it depends on how you define the offense. Post-adjudicated, we have people with DUI 2, sometimes DUI 3, which
I think is a pretty serious offense.

WOLF: So when you say post-adjudicated,
they’ve already been found guilty in court and then as part of their …

BYRD:
… sentence from the judge, the judge orders that they participate in the reparative process.

And
in my mind there’s a big difference between a sentence which is punitive and going back to your community and
talking with, sometimes the victim, other affected parties from your community, about what you did.

When
you go through the court process, immediately you become the defendant and that’s what you vigorously do, is
defend yourself.

Either I didn’t do it unless you can prove it, and if you can prove that
I did it, well it’s because of, you know, this, that, or the other, you know? I was drunk or, you know, I needed
it, or – so the actual effect of what you did and what was wrong with it, and the people that you hurt never even
comes into the conversation.

So if you end there, with that sentence, the person has stayed disconnected
from what was wrong with what they did and often come out of the criminal justice system considering themselves a
victim of that system and mostly concerned by how they’ve been impacted by the punishment, by the court process,
whatever. So it’s a very different look at the offense when they come to the reparative board.

WOLF:
What is the commitment you’re asking from the community members who participate in this? How often do they show
up for a panel? How much time does it take? And how long do they usually stick around in terms of their longevity
and participation on a panel?

VASTINE: So this is Karen. We actually
are the busiest justice center and because of our caseload, we typically have six to eight panels of three to five
community members meeting every week. And generally, at a minimum, that’s a 2 1/2 hour commitment every week.

WOLF: Wow, so that’s in Burlington, which is the largest city
in Vermont.

VASTINE: Right, that’s in Burlington and I think
Mark and Yvonne have a much different expectation of your volunteers.

BYRD:
Our volunteers for repair board are asked to come to a two hour meeting twice a month. We schedule new cases for
an hour and review cases for half an hour. So we could have two new cases or a new case and two reviews.

And
sometimes if we’re backlogged we’ll ask people to do a little more in a meeting, but that’s what’s
typical. And in terms of longevity, we have one person who’s been a volunteer on a reparative board since 1997,
’98, and most people stay a long time.

WOLF: I’m speaking
with Yvonne Byrd, and Karen Vastine, and Mark Wennberg, who are all involved in community justice initiatives in
Vermont.

Let me ask you. It sounds like a big commitment and I wonder, where does the enthusiasm
and the interest come from, that people are willing to make this commitment to what sounds like a potentially difficult
and challenging—and in the case of the Burlington boards, somewhat time-consuming—commitment? Does anyone want to
take on that question?

VASTINE: I’d be happy to.

WOLF:
Karen.

VASTINE: Since we also ask more of our volunteers.

So
I think that what’s interesting about Vermont—I don’t think it’s just unique to Vermont—but because
of the scale of Vermont, you know, there’s about 625,000 people in our state, and so the scale of Vermont really
lends itself nicely to participatory democracy, and I believe that that is very alive and well in Vermont.

We
still have town meeting day, which is where a lot of decisions are made in local municipalities, and in Burlington,
for instance, was have something called neighborhood planning assemblies, and those are specific groups that inform
our city government, since we’re a little bit too big to have town meeting day.

And so I
think because in part of this history steeped in citizen engagement, that we see a lot of interest in this opportunity
to have a direct impact on the criminal justice system and then also what’s happening within city government.

And then on top of that, many years ago we had a commissioner of corrections, John Gorczyk, who
we really credit with bringing restorative justice practices to Vermont. He really saw this as a way to keep offenders
in the community and also to keep the community safe, and as a way of really empowering our community.

WOLF:
And so is Vermont just this ideal of community involvement everywhere you go?

WENNBERG:
The birth of the justice centers might have been the brainchild of a few key figures, but it’s become much larger
than that. I think that that had helped to institutionalize what we do.

VASTINE:
And in terms of are we all singing kumbayah and holding hands in Vermont? The answer is no.

I
mean in Burlington, and I know in many other communities, we are challenged to figure out how to diversify our participation
in government. I know that in Burlington, we have spent a lot of time focusing on how to engage non-white, non-educated
individuals, you know, in government. And that’s also true for our justice centers, is that we would also like
to continue to diversify our applicant pool.

BYRD: John Gorczyk,
who Karen referred to, he was one of the longer-reigning commissioners of corrections, and he used his authority
to start reparative boards, and it was based on his belief that he has that government’s role is to provide
assistance, resources, technical assistance and such to communities, and that community’s role is to support
families, and that the family’s role is to support individuals and nurture and grow individuals.

And
that what we have had as a system is one in which government bypasses community and families and is doing the social
service, human resources is like government taking care of individuals.

WOLF:
That’s fascinating. It really speaks to the power of an individual with a vision finding the right fertile ground
to implement his vision.

I thought I would just ask you one more question. If any of you guys
have any tips for people who want to explore some of the models outside of Vermont, what advice might you give someone
who doesn’t necessarily have a visionary leader or a culture maybe of specific community involvement?

VASTINE:
This is Karen. I think that one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from this is really asking your community
what it wants. And so whether that’s taking advantage of existing infrastructures through community groups and
churches and that sort of thing, or going out there and seeing what are your community members most concerned about?

WOLF: Does anyone have anything to add to that?

BYRD:
Not a lot of people know what the term restorative justice means. There’s a great book that Howard Zehr wrote,
“The New Book of Restorative Justice,” which we pass out to all of our volunteers and potential volunteers. And I
think when you read that you come away with the sense that “Wow, this just makes sense. This is what we ought to
do,” and it’s kind of inspiring.

So maybe disseminating that information in the community
is a helpful prelude to the conversation, and I do think having a champion at a high level is really important.

WOLF:
That’s Howard Zehr. How do you spell his name?

BYRD: Z-E-H-R.

WOLF: Great. Anyone want to add anything more?

WENNBERG:
Only that I think even in communities where there are community justice options, there are a lot of organizations
that are doing work that there is potential alignment to. And so it wouldn’t be so far afield for them to adopt
some of these practices with some institutional support, to begin doing this kind of work.

WOLF:
I thank all three of you for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.

I’ve
been speaking with Yvonne Byrd, director of the Montpelier Community Justice Center, Karen Vastine, the community
justice coordinator in Burlington, and Mark Wennberg, director of the St. Albans Community Justice Center.

I’m
Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation. For more information about the Center for
Court Innovation you can visit our website at www.courtinnovation.org. Thank you for listening.

September
2011

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T.J. Donovan, the state’s attorney for Chittenden County, explains a new initiative in Burlington, Vermont,
that mandates community restitution and participation in social services as alternatives to court or incarceration.

ROBERT
V. WOLF: I’m Rob Wolf, director of Communications at the Center for Court Innovation and I’m
here with T.J. Donovan, the state’s attorney of Chittenden County, Vermont, which includes Burlington. That’s
the state’s largest city, is that right?

T.J. DONOVAN: That’s
correct.

WOLF: Well, thanks for talking to me.

DONOVAN:
Happy to be here.

WOLF: You’re here at the Center for Court
Innovation today with about 20 people who are participating in a roundtable to share ideas about community engagement.
You guys have spent the morning talking about the different the programs you’ve started or are involved in that
actively involve community members. I thought we’d start out by talking to you about the experiences that have
helped shape your outlook as a prosecutor.

DONOVAN: Sure. You know,
I grew up in Burlington, Vermont, certainly made a number of bad judgments and mistakes as a young person. I was
given the opportunity for second chances numerous times—not that I was a child of privilege, but rather I came from
a two-parent home with some resources, with a family that had been embedded in the community. And I think that reflecting
back on that, I was probably the beneficiary of many second chances for some of my youthful exuberance. And when
I became a prosecutor first in Philadelphia, and then in Burlington, Vermont, it was not lost on me that we were
prosecuting people, both African-Americans and white people, who came from poverty, who came from places with a lack
of resources. They came from marginalized places in the world and I began to realize that we were continuing to marginalize
them through the criminal justice system, whether it be for drug prosecution or mental health illnesses that caused
criminal behavior, often times those individuals who don’t come from a family of resources, the first time they
get that intervention or assistance is through the criminal justice system as opposed to somebody who does come from
a family of resources—that intervention is often happening much earlier in time and they are being kept out of the
criminal justice system.

So, as we continued to work in the court system, some things weren’t
changing. The recidivism rate was extremely high, about 50 to 60 percent in Vermont. The budget for the Department
of Corrections kept increasing and we weren’t getting good results. And we kept seeing the same people, and
the demographic I saw were mostly poor people, people who had lack of education, lack of job skills or job training,
substance abuse issues—both alcohol and drugs—and mental health issues. And where we thought we could engage and
make a difference was by intervening earlier in the process to keep these individuals out of the criminal justice
system. They were committing crimes that—not that we’re condoning any criminal activity—but they were committing
crimes that were low-level misdemeanors. And so the question was, what are we gonna do that’s gonna keep the
community safe and enhance public safety? And we started to say we need to address the root cause of their criminal
behavior. So we were able to obtain funding for a community coordinator whose job was to bring those community groups
into the court system, because in the past what we’ve done is we’ve put people on probation, we load them
up with conditions of probation, and then we push them back out into the community and say you’re on your own.
Often times they come back on a violation of probation and we lock them up. So the community coordinator was to screen
cases as they came in, conduct somewhat informal risk assessments on these individuals, and then link these people
with the appropriate social service agency to address the root cause of their behavior in lieu of prosecution. So
far the results are good. It’s very early in the process but I think we’re seeing that when given an opportunity,
many time this is the first time these people have been given an opportunity. People try to make the most of it.

WOLF: When did you start this project?

DONOVAN:
We started it last September.

WOLF: Who is eligible, generally speaking?
I mean, you described sort of a broad profile.

DONOVAN: Yeah, let
me say who’s not eligible. Obviously we’re not gonna divert any cases that are sex crimes, any cases that
are domestic violence, any cases that are serious felonies, any cases where there are weapons involved, drug dealing
or drug selling. And really any cases—as I like to say the standard is—does it pass the “straight-face test”
for the guy in the street. Because I think the public has to believe in what we’re doing in order to keep the
justice system credible. So generally they are low-level misdemeanors. We have diverted some felonies, and it’s
really on a case-by-case analysis.

WOLF: And these are pre-charge,
right? Is that the idea?

DONOVAN: Yep.

WOLF:
So what is the leverage that you have?

DONOVAN: Well, the incentive
for the individual is to, number one, get some help and not to be prosecuted. The leverage is: if you don’t
do what we ask, you’ll come back for prosecution. You’ll go back on the traditional track.

WOLF:
So then there is follow-up?

DONOVAN: Yes, and that’s, that’s,
frankly, has been a challenge for us, you know? We’ve started on this really limited budget, we got some funding,
but the critical piece here is the infrastructure, the capacity to do that, because I think the most important thing
is ensuring compliance and then tracking outcomes. And so that’s the part we’re working on right now. We
have a couple of interns working on that. It’s tough work, we need more funding, frankly, to build the infrastructure
to make this program truly successful.

WOLF: One resource you have
in Burlington is the Community Justice Center. And the Justice Center is doing all of these interesting things like
restorative justice panels, which involve citizens, and working really hands-on directly with offenders. I wonder
if you can explain to me how you take advantage of what the community justice center has to offer.

DONOVAN:
Well, we view the Community Justice Center as a partner. So often some of the cases we refer from this program will
go to the Community Justice Center. We think that’s the appropriate place in lieu of prosecution. They can go
to the CJC and engage in a reparative board, restorative justice type process. So really what we’re looking
for on the front end is a menu of options because it does a couple of things. I think we’re gonna get better
outcomes that way. We’re going to enhance public safety, and then it’s gonna free up those very scarce
resources we, in the prosecutor’s office, to focus truly on the crimes that affect public safety—homicides,
sexual assaults, drug-dealing.

WOLF: During the morning session,
you used the term “cost drivers,” and I wonder if you could explain what that word means.

DONOVAN:
It’s about identifying the population where we think we can make the most impact, and kind of bend the curve
in criminal justice system that’s gonna enhance public safety, and frankly save the state money—save the taxpayers’
money. Because with a recidivism rate of 60 percent, and in Vermont a corrections budget that’s second fastest
budget item that’s growing, behind healthcare, we can do better. We need to do better because we’re spending
a lot of money. And it’s the same people going in and out. And really the demographic, I think, is the cost
drivers to all of our systems—you know, the cost drivers in the criminal justice system, the cost drivers in the
healthcare industry system because these are the people that go to the ER for their primary care physician, and it’s
the cost drivers in the job training field, because these are the people who we want to be trained and these are
the services we provide. And so it’s the same population across systems. They’re in the court system. The
trick is to identify them. The trick is to conduct an assessment to really understand, what is the root cause of
the issue here, and try to address it.

WOLF: Just to remind people
that I’m speaking to T.J. Donovan, the state’s attorney in Chittenden County, Vermont. I thought I would
just ask you about a question that a defense attorney raised at the morning session, which was really that concern
that some of these initiatives are, perhaps, imposing greater penalties on people if they choose to participate in
this alternative than they would if they just went through the normal process where they, in fact, might just get
time served and they’ll be out in 10 minutes. And the restorative justice process, the alternative might impose
what might be viewed as something more arduous. You may get community service, you may have to get a GED—

DONOVAN: Well yeah, you can go through the court system, you can plead guilty,
you’ll probably get a fine and be out the door in 10 minutes. But you’re not realizing that criminal conviction’s
gonna stay with you the rest of your life and there’s a lot of collateral consequences that go with it. Loss
of eligibility for federal student loans and other collateral consequences. So, I think doing a little bit more work
up front and thinking long term—again, it’s about enhancing public safety, creating a vibrant community for
everybody, giving everybody an opportunity to be successful. I mean I think part of the reason for recidivism is
you take away an opportunity from somebody. Well, you know, somebody who is 19 years old and had a bag of marijuana
on him and he plead guilty and got a $200 fine, how did that enhance public safety when now he’s 29 or 39 and
he’s still answering for that conviction at 19? And that conviction is still preventing him from having gone
to school, getting a job. And so the issues of collateral consequences where you can get out of that courtroom really
quick, but there’s gonna be long-lasting effects because of that criminal conviction. It may be more arduous
up front to do more community service, but we think it’s about accountability, we think it’s about restoring
the harm done to the community, but also giving the offender the opportunity to go on to be a productive, law-abiding
citizen.

WOLF: We’ve run out of time. Thank you so much for
taking the time. I’ve been talking with T.J. Donovan, the state’s attorney in Chittenden County, Vermont,
who’s here today participating in a roundtable at the Center for Court Innovation about community engagement
strategies for the criminal justice system. I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court
Innovation. Visit us at www.courtinnovation.org. Thanks for listening.

August 2011

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Barbara Thompson, director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Family Policy/Children
and Youth, discusses the impacts that prolonged deployment of a parent or sibling can have on children.
This is one of three podcasts produced in collaboration with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

SARAH
SCHWEIG: Hi, I’m Sarah Schweig of the Center for Court Innovation and this is one in a series
of special podcasts the Center is doing with the support and assistance of the National Council of Juvenile and Family
Court Judges, which is hosting its 74th conference in New York in July 2011. I’m speaking with Barbara Thompson,
director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Family Policy, Children, and Youth, which gives her responsibility
over the Department of Defense Child Development and Youth Programs, serving 700,000 children at over 300 locations
worldwide. It’s interesting that we have someone from the Department of Defense at this judges conference. What
brings you to the conference today?

BARBARA THOMPSON: Well I was
invited by one of our legal aides, Colonel Sean Shumake, who felt it was really important for family judges to know
some of the issues that are facing military families and to help them be aware of the support systems that are available.
Less than one percent of our population serves in uniform and so it behooves the 99 percent of us who benefit from
their sacrifice, that we are contributing to their well being, and that takes a community to do that.

SCHWEIG:
And so what types of challenges are service members and their families facing today?

THOMPSON:
These are unprecedented times for the military. We have been in combat for almost 10 years, and the strain and the
stress on the service members and their families is really very high. Many of our service members have faced multiple
deployments for long periods of time, which makes it hard for the stay-at-home parent to deal with all of the issues
as a single parent versus the couple that they were. And children are particularly vulnerable because of their developmental
stages, being separated from an important adult in their life for such long periods of time.

SCHWEIG:
What is the impact on youth and children in these families of military service members?

THOMPSON:
I would like to say first, I feel and I think very strongly that our military families are very resilient, and they
are very proud and very rarely ask for help. And our children, in particular, are sacrificing long periods of time
with one of their parents, which is—or a big brother, even, a sibling, you know? These are important adults in their
lives and to—even though we have Skype and we have computer connectivity, it’s not the same as missing your
high school graduation, missing your birthday, missing the holidays, missing big events in your life that that special
parent is not there with you. And so we are concerned that children are having some challenging behaviors and we
worry about our teens in particular, who are at a point in their lives that they can make risky decisions and engage
in risky behaviors. And again, I would behoove the judicial system, when they have a young person in their court,
to ask if somebody in their family is serving or has been deployed. I think that, again, that’s one of those
indicators that maybe this child just needs some extra help to get through.

SCHWEIG:
So what kinds of supports are available for service members and their families to address these unique needs?

THOMPSON: Well there’s a very robust family support system, especially
for our active duty force. We have a systemic approach and an infrastructure on the installations. What became a
challenge for those of us who serve military families is how do we reach our guard and reservists, who have stepped
up to the plate to be brothers in arms, sisters in arms with the active duty force for Operation Enduring Freedom
and for Operation Iraqi Freedom. So they’re dispersed throughout the entire country and even the four territories,
and we don’t have that brick and mortar infrastructure for them. So we’ve done some pretty innovative programs—one
of them is called Military OneSource, which is a 1-800, 24/7, 365 day-a-year information and assistance call and
website where families and service members, regardless of their activation status, can call and receive support.
A master’s level counselor answers the phone. You never get a recording, and they have varied services, such
as face-to-face telephonic and web-based non-medical counseling. So if you need to talk to somebody about a challenging
issue in your life such as communicating with your teen, or anger management, or stress management, there are licensed
clinicians available to support you. They also offer financial counseling. They offer healthy coaching, and there’s
a wide variety of educational materials on the website that can support military families.

Two
of the programs particularly geared for the guard and reserve: one is the joint family support assistance program.
We were mandated by law in 2007 to set up a program to support the geographically dispersed. We’ve partnered
with the National Guard Bureau to actually set up teams of licensed clinicians, financial counselors, and a Military
OneSource consultant at each state headquarters to support the state family program director. And that way we can
reach out to those families who are located in the states.

We have another program called the
military family life counselor program—again, non-medical counselors. It’s family support, it’s prevention.
We are gonna make sure we have very qualified people to be able to read the red flags. So if it is going to escalate
to something more serious than just life coaching, that they know those red flags and can then refer them to a more
of an intervention with medical professionals. And we augment the yellow ribbon events, which are events that are,
again, mandated by congress to support returning guard and reservists at the 30/60/90 day mark to make sure, hands-on,
eyes-on that they are doing okay, they are readjusting back into society.

SCHWEIG:
Do you want to say something about how these programs maybe team up with those courts? That might be an interesting
sort of innovative collaboration.

THOMPSON: Yeah, I think it’s
really exciting. A new field for me, in particular, is interested in military families and is interested in our young
veterans who are very young, coming back from combat and reintegrating into the civilian society. And they’re
coming back with some issues. And I think the more the court system understands those issues, it can be a support
to find and connect them with the right resources to help them as they strive to reach a level of normalcy that takes
time.

SCHWEIG: We mentioned family court but how do your programs
and initiatives relate to veteran-specific courts?

THOMPSON: You
know, we work very closely with the VA and we know that they have a remarkable and wonderful infrastructure of vet
centers across the country. I think there are over 250. They are staffed with veterans, they’re staffed with
licensed clinicians, and they offer free counseling, not only to the service member, but also to their family. And
again, if the court system knows about these vet centers and knows about the vet courts, they, again, can be able
to communicate the issues that they’re facing, be more aware of some of those challenges, and then find the
right resources. I think it would be very sad that we don’t ask somebody who is in jail, “Have you served? Did
you just get back from deployment?”

SCHWEIG: If there’s one
thing you want professionals and the general public to remember about the time we’re in and military families,
what kind of role the community might need to have?

THOMPSON: We
are just unbelievably astounded by the level of support we’re receiving from the White House, from the congress
on taking care of military member and their families, and Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden have both made it a part of their
administration that we need to build awareness of the issues facing military families. And two thirds of our active
duty live off of the installation. So they are in our communities. All of our guard and reservists live in our communities.
We need to be asking, “Do you serve? Are you a member of the military?” And know if your neighbor has a deployed
spouse, that you can be there to do some of the little things to take off some of that sacrifice and that burden.
And I think judges are particularly in a position of making the entire community, whether it’s the faith-based
community, whether it’s law enforcement, whether it’s systems in place to be able to say, we need to reach
out to the members in our community who have sacrificed so much for our freedom and our well-being, and we need to
give back to those families.

SCHWEIG: Excellent. If you want to learn
more about some of these initiatives, where do you suggest that the public or court professionals look?

THOMPSON: Well, there are two avenues to find that out. One is just Google
“military homefront,” and that’s our official quality of life portal, which lists all of our programs,
lists all of the regulations and information about military families. And for those interested parties who want to
share resources with military families, I would suggest that they learn about Military OneSource, which is militaryonesource.com.
It’s all one word. And then the 1-800 number is 1-800-342-9647.

SCHWEIG:
Excellent. Well thanks so much for speaking with me today. I’m Sarah Schweig, and I’ve been speaking with
Barbara Thompson, director of the Office of Family Policy, Children, and Youth, about the Department of Defense’s
programs for military families. This podcast was jointly sponsored by the National Council of Juvenile and Family
Court Judges and the Center for Court Innovation. To find more about the National Council, you can visit their website
at www.ncjfcj.org. The Center for Court Innovation’s website is at www.courtinnovation.org. Thank you for listening.

July 2011

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