Mr. Wayne Bear is the President/CEO of the National Partnership for Juvenile Services (NPJS). Prior to his current role in NPJS, Mr. Bear was President of the National Juvenile Detention Association (NJDA) and Chairperson of the Critical Issues and Policy Direction Committee, which is responsible for developing and promulgating all of the Position Statements for the organization. Mr. Bear’s fifty plus year career path includes work as a detention front line staff, juvenile probation officer, residential program management and private practice as a licensed social worker and recently most recently as the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Partnership for Juvenile Services (PPJS) formerly known as JDCAP.
Mr. Bear saw his initial involvement in NPJS as an opportunity to be an advocate for front line professionals who were constantly facing external criticisms and viewed as opponents to justice reform. Wayne quickly became involved in projects to build collaboration between jurisdictions and to reframe the concept of “juvenile justice system” to be inclusive of service providers, community resources and family. This approach has helped develop a more comprehensive approach to better position youth and family’s access to a continuum of care that leads to lasting positive change.
In both his role as the Chairperson of the Critical Issues Committee and now as the CEO of NPJS, Mr. Bear has unwaveringly focused the organization’s activities toward achieving their mission engaging field experts to disseminate the groundbreaking research, to engage in networking opportunities to share best practices, to facilitate training on the most current approaches to child care, and to create position statements that inform decision-makers who are needed to fund and support our member efforts. All of these efforts focused on the sole purpose of ensuring a high-quality continuum of services from in-home diversionary projects to and including out-of-home care for the most high-risk, high-need youth.