A new digital curriculum developed by a team of researchers and faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is helping juvenile justice professionals apply developmental neuroscience in ways that can better support court-involved youth.

The curriculum, Bridging Neuroscience and Juvenile Justice, was created through a collaboration among the UNC School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, the UNC School of Government, and the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG). The project was supported by the Dana Foundation and recently launched after 18 months of development by a multidisciplinary team of research and faculty experts.

Designed for professionals within the Department of Juvenile Justice, the curriculum makes developmental neuroscience more accessible and practical for judges, court counselors, and supervisors whose decisions can have lasting effects on young people’s lives. By translating research into real-world guidance, the project aims to strengthen decision-making while also reducing stigma toward youth who have often experienced significant adversity.

“Support from the Dana Foundation has enabled us to bridge a longstanding gap between developmental neuroscience and juvenile justice practice by creating an accessible, practitioner-focused educational curriculum that translates neuroscience into actionable guidance for professionals who determine the future of court-involved youth,” said Diana “Denni” Fishbein, PhD, a senior scientist at FPG and one of the project’s lead collaborators.

In addition to Fishbein, project collaborators include Aysenil Belger, PhD, of the UNC School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry (Belger is also a faculty fellow at FPG); Jacquelyn “Jacqui” Greene, JD, of the UNC School of Government; and Wendy Morgan, PhD, a senior implementation specialist at FPG known for winning awards for the design and development of innovative learning. Together, the team brought expertise in developmental neuroscience, juvenile law and procedure, child development, mental health, and learning design to create a resource grounded in both science and practice.

The inaugural course focuses on the effects of substance use on adolescent brain development and explores how different disposition options may influence the developing brains of court-involved youth. Rather than presenting neuroscience as abstract theory, the course was developed using a design-based methodology developed by Morgan to address questions practitioners face every day, including how substance use affects an already vulnerable adolescent brain and how court responses may either intensify or help mitigate that harm.

To make sure the curriculum would be meaningful in practice, the team conducted focus groups with judges, court counselors, and court counselor supervisors. Those conversations helped identify existing knowledge, common misconceptions, and practical barriers to applying developmental neuroscience in juvenile justice settings, setting the goals for the course

“These conversations were invaluable in identifying existing knowledge and misconceptions as well as barriers and facilitators in the use of developmental neuroscience within their work,” said Belger.

As the first course took shape, Department of Juvenile Justice professionals also provided formative reviews that led to important design refinements. “Feedback provided valuable insight into design revisions that would more tightly map to existing workflows,” said Morgan, thereby prompting the team to remove choices related to the assessment to place greater emphasis on practical guidance.

The digital curriculum was paired with three in-person professional development workshops tailored separately for judges, court counselors, and court counselor supervisors. The workshops were intended to deepen engagement with the material, encourage discussion of systemic challenges, and help participants apply neuroscience concepts to real case scenarios with support from an expert panel.

Results of the team’s data analysis demonstrated that participants were highly engaged and planned to apply the information learned in their dispositional decisions. Attendees also expressed interest in sharing the material more broadly with colleagues and stakeholders in hopes of supporting a more coordinated and comprehensive approach to case dispositions for youth.