Alternative to Jail Programs for Juveniles

Two new programs are saving New York City several million dollars and with promising results, even though they have been in operation only two years. The link above to the New York City Independent Budget Office weekly newsletter features this week the two community-based approaches to rehabilitation of youth.

• The Enhanced Supervision Program (ESP) was specifically designed to divert serious cases from Office of Children and Family Services when the youth do not pose a threat to community safety.
• Esperanza is a demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice. Youth enter Esperanza as a result of their Family Court hearing, either as part of a conditional discharge or in conjunction with probation. Esperanza provides family-based therapeutic services and crisis management.

With thanks to Jack Ryan, NYC Department of Probation, for sending me the IBO link.

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The Amachi Model: Building from the Ground Up: Creating Effective programs to Mentor Children of Prisoners

Public/Private Ventures’ five years of hands-on experience designing and implanting Amachi program around the country are drawn upon in this best practice model for mentoring children of prisoners. It is a guidebook for learning the professional procedures, standards and administrative tools required for an effective program.  Downloadable 45 page pdf file. Can also be purchased in hard copy online.

Related Article: Locking Up Parents, Damaging Children

Book review of All Alone in the world: Children of the Incarcerated.  From the review,  "The unprecedented expansion of the prison population in the U.S. over the last 30 years, driven largely by changes in the way the law treats drug users and drug sellers, has had profound effects on millions of people who have never committed a crime: the children of prisoners, but also their siblings and other family members, friends and neighbors.”

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Freedom Writers

The Freedom Writers idea is a new approach to writing in which there is no formal curriculum or body of research to prove how well it works. It is also so exciting that Paramount Pictures is a making a movie about Erin Gruwell, the teacher who pioneered the idea and watched many of her struggling high school student blossom into college-bound youngsters, eager to write and to succeed.

It’s a simple idea. Teachers get kids to write by writing about their own lives.

Gruwell’s success was followed by a book filled with her students’ essays on alcoholism, gang initiation, racism, homelessness and abuse. The book is named for the Freedom Riders who helped integrate the South.

The Philadelphia Inquirer  has published a three-part series featuring students in that city and their writing as well as video interviews of the students reading their work.

Part I             Part II             Part III               Freedom Writers Web Site

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Circus Arts Help Troubled Youth in Chile

Using circus arts to help troubled youth was the brainchild of the Cirque du Soleil, which began its first two pilot projects in Chile and Brazil in 1995. Today Cirque du Soleil has 50 projects running in 19 countries, many of them developing countries. Today, Chile’s Circo du Mundo is run independently and continuously searches for funding. The organization’s director says circus arts get kids to channel the same energy that leads to violence or delinquency toward positive pursuits.

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Guide to Federal Resources for Youth Development

A group of federal departments with funding for youth come together in this catalog of financial resources for children and youth. It lists more than 100 federal programs cross-referenced to five core resources regarded as crucial to effective youth development. About 50 pages. pdf file.

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Making a Difference in the Lives of Youth

The National Collaboration for Youth has published descriptions of 10 successful out-of-school-time programs that show how these programs are making a difference. I picked these two to bring to your attention simply because they caught my eye. The other eight are just as interesting to read about.

• P.A.V.E. (Project Anti-Violence Education) – Grants contribute to healthy development of girls ages 5-17 by providing funding to Girl Scout councils to create programs that help girls learn how to stay safe, reduce their vulnerability to crime, and/or decrease their risk of becoming perpetrators of violence against themselves or others.
  
• Seeds to Success: Youth Farmstand Programs – classroom and on-the-job training  for at-risk 14- to 18-year-old special needs students with the goal of preparing them to be productive members of the workforce. The program is a statewide, interdisciplinary program operating 7 farmstands in 4 counties of New Jersey.

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Mentoring in America 2005

This new report on the state of mentoring in the United States presents the results of a poll of the mentoring community in the country. Key findings:

• 3,000,000 adults have formed one-to-one mentoring relationships with young people; an increase of 19% since 2002.
• 96% of existing mentors would recommend mentoring to others.
• While the average mentoring relationship lasts 9 months, 38% last at least one year.
• The majority of mentors are willing to work with youth in unique or difficult situations, including children of incarcerated parents, youth with disabilities and immigrant youth.
  
  20 page pdf file.

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Muslim Girl Scouts

There are a growing number of Muslim Girl and Boy Scout troops across the nation. The Islamic Committee on Girl Scouting in Connecticut estimates almost 1,000 Muslim girls participate in scouting. The Boy Scouts have counted nearly 2,000 Muslim Boy Scouts in 104 units affiliated with mosques and Islamic schools.

Here is a short report from the Pluralism Project on the growing popularity of scouting among the country’s Muslim population: Muslim Boy Scout and Girl Scout Troops Grow in Popularity Nationwide.

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New!! Graduated Sanctions E-Tool

Developed as part of the NCJFCJ project to improve juvenile sanctions, and unveiled at the Graduated Sanctions Conference last week, this online tool helps practitioners to connect juveniles to the right programs at the right time. The tool divides graduated sanctions into five major levels and presents programs and intervention strategies that work within each of them. Handy links to detailed information and expert program contacts are also provided, enabling the user to access all of the information they need to connect juveniles and their families to the services they need when they need them.

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Program: Art Therapy Connection

This program helps children and teens in danger of failing or dropping out of school by encouraging them to create art and safely communicate their thoughts and feelings. By using art therapy as a means of self-expression and self-discovery, student can have a more successful school year. The Art Therapy connection works to increase concentration levels, self-esteem and self-confidence as well as enhance interpersonal skills and defuse angry feelings.

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Revised DARE Program Shows Promise

 The revised DARE program is showing effective results in preliminary studies. Researchers found that students given the new curriculum were more likely to refuse drugs and had fewer misconceptions about how many of their peers use drugs, compared to students in a control group.

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Reclaiming Futures Shows Promise

Research from the Urban Institute and the University of Chicago says that communities piloting the Reclaiming Futures anti-drug approach have made good improvements in coordinating juvenile-justice and addiction-treatment programs. Researcher Jeffrey Butts says that 12 of 13 indices being measured through the project have improved since 2003, including drug assessment, treatment outcomes and service delivery.

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A Last Chance for Aging Horses and Troubled Children

In Troy, Maine aging or unwanted horses find a safe, caring environment where they can regain their health or live at their days with dignity. At the same time, the animals give young people facing serious problems a chance to care about another and a chance to learn to love. You can learn more about the program and meet the horses at its website, http://lastchanceranchmaine.tripod.com

++++++++++Las Vegas’ Fire Starter Intervention Program

This program begun five years ago to teach kids the consequences of starting fires has changed substantially as the organization has become aware of the volume of kids who are in a crisis situation who start fires. Courts and schools mandate that children attend the fire starter intervention class if they are caught playing with fire, pull a fire alarm, or make a false alarm call to 911. Since last year the class sizes have tripled. At the end of this article you can take the Youth Fire Starter Family Risk Survey and see how you do.

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National League of Cities Seeks Mayor-Police Partnership Examples

NLC, with support from the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office, has begun a nationwide inquiry to identify programs helping the nation’s youth and children, which are supported by collaboration between law enforcement and mayors. The project seeks to identify and highlight active local partnership programs in areas such as youth violence prevention, juvenile re-entry, mentoring, school safety, and bullying. Profiles of selected programs will appear in the COPS office “Innovations” series and be featured at national conference. Click on the link above to contribute an example program to the project. For more information contact Melissa Rogers at rogers@nic.org

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Family Group Decision-Making

The American Humane Association’s National Center on Family Group Decision Making has added a number of new resources online since the last time I visited the web site. Here are some representative samples:

Family Group Conferencing: Responses to the Most Commonly Asked Questions

Family Group Conferencing: A Message from the Bench

Family Group Conferencing: A Realistic Option for Juvenile Justice?

FGDM Training Schedule for 2006

And, from Casey Family Programs, another application of FGDM, a description of a Texas family-centered approach to child welfare.

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