Dr. Stephen Phillippi, Jr., associate professor for research at the Louisiana State University Health Science Center School of Public Health, was named acting director for the Louisiana Institute for Public Health and Justice (IPHJ) last week.  The institute is funded through the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change Initiative.  It was established eight years ago to affect positive changes in the juvenile justice system of Louisiana.

It was at this meeting that the group began looking anew at the future leverage points of reform as well as the perceived challenges, and threats, to juvenile justice reform.  The IPHJ also released three new innovation briefs – Measuring Youth Outcomes in Juvenile Justice Reform, A Model for Juvenile Drug Court, and Juvenile Probation Reform.   The meeting concluded with information about MacArthur’s newly established National Resource Centers and a vision of their new grant focus working on issues faced by the criminal justice system and young adult offenders, including the overuse of jails for low-level non-violent, and often mentally ill, offenders throughout this country.

Dr. Phillippi is a licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Clinically Certified Forensic Counselor. He has a 20-year history of developing, managing and providing direct care services along the full range of the Juvenile Justice System continuum of care. In his current role with the School of Public Health, Dr. Phillippi is a Behavioral Health and Community Sciences faculty member, who teaches Health Behavior Change and Mental Health Promotion in Community Health Sciences. He has been a member of the Institute for Public Health & Justice since its inception.