The youth who end up in juvenile facilities today have problems that rival those of their adult counterparts. No longer are they runaways, but rather they are abused, addicted to drugs or alcohol and suffer from mental health disorders.

Knowing this, juvenile corrections agencies have created a variety of programs and tried new approaches to reach this population to help turn their criminal thinking and disruptive behavior around. Included among those strategies are programs involving the faith-based community, job training and substance abuse therapy.

"With our youth, we have a very needy population. We are getting some very severely disturbed young men and women. It's a constant challenge to keep program staff trained and youth engaged but I'll tell you we have a lot of people who have a passion for this," said Joyce Starr, Administrator of Substance Abuse Services, Ohio Department of Youth Services.

Starr, over the last several years, has overseen the creation of a new therapeutic community program at the department's Mohican Juvenile Correctional Facility that works with certain juvenile offenders prior to their release.

The program's approach looks at the whole person -- their behavior, their thinking and their actions - and how they relate to one another and their involvement with the criminal justice system. The goal in the six-month program is to get these youth to start anew with a fresh perspective on what they want to do with their lives.

Ohio's therapeutic community is a prime example of the innovative efforts that are being made to impact recidivism among juveniles and give them a different outlook on how they can live their lives.

Therapeutic Community Finds Success

The therapeutic community at the Mohican Juvenile Correctional Facility has been operational for five years and seeks youth who meet certain requirements to participate in the program about six months prior to their release.

According to Starr, the Department of Youth Services keeps a database on the offenders in the juvenile corrections system that details their medical, mental health, social and educational backgrounds. It is from this database, and recommendations from the court, that Mohican finds participants.

"If a youth needs real structure and mental health medications, then they are probably not appropriate. We'll also see if they qualify for a residential program. If they don't need such an intense program, then they won't be chosen," she said.

Once a youth is identified as a potential candidate, the TC staff send out requests to current social workers and others who have contact with the youth to gather more information about their appropriateness for the program.

In addition, the Mohican staff contact the release authority and gather input from the community to ensure that placement at Mohican follows all the requirements of sentencing.

The program accepts offenders who have committed offenses ranging from felony one to felony five, offenders with a history of severe drug and alcohol use or who have a current problem, as well as those with a mental health diagnosis who have been stabilized. Even offenders with impulse control or anger management problems can be participants if they can address those issues in the general population institutions first.

Once they are a part of the program, the offenders quickly learn that their hard work and behavior are key to climbing the ladder of jobs and status inside the TC. Offenders start at the "bottom" of the ladder as a member of a crew - which handles such tasks as cleaning, orientation and events at the facility. They can graduate from a crew member to leader, all the way up the ladder to department head, assistant coordinator and coordinator. The coordinators - all youth - report to a staff member at Mohican.

"They have a chain of command that youth must follow -- a hierarchy where the residents strive to earn better jobs, status, privileges. The TC teaches "Right Living" skills. It is supposed to be a replica of the real work," said Shannon Teague, Superintendent of Mohican. "They move up the ladder by complying with the rules and participating in the group's activities."

The youth also participate in the various meetings and discussions that take place ranging from process groups and a social work groups to educational groups.

"They don't go to drug and alcohol classes. If, for example, an issue comes up with anger, they will [discuss] how does your criminal thinking relate to your behavior? It's all connected and it's done under the premise of 'Right Living.' When you talk about that, you talk about a positive decision, [and] learning from mistakes," said Starr.

In addition to the vested interest of the youth, the involvement and support of the staff is vital to the TC's success. Starr said that all staff in the facility are trained on the TC premise, the language and the rewards and punishments so that the message is consistent.

Although those who run Mohican have anecdotal evidence - such as individual reports from parole officers -- that Mohican youth seem to fare better in the community, the research on outcomes is sparse.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati (http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?ucin1083928845) suggests that there is a slight difference in the likelihood of re-incarceration between youth who participated in the TC and those who did not. Those who completed the TC were less likely to recidivate, but the study also found that when they did commit a crime, they did so more quickly than those who did not participate.

Teague said those who run the TC know that when aftercare is attached to the program, juveniles do fare better after release. The problem is that only one region provides this type of "step-down" program. Nevertheless, program administrators work hard to help the juveniles prepare for their return t the community.

Another type of program that heavily utilizes the community in rehabilitating the juvenile population is the faith-based community.

Faith-based Programs Support Youth

In recent years the federal government has paid close attention to and provided funding for faith-based programs that work with both adult and juvenile offenders. Public/Private Ventures recently completed research on several demonstration projects involving the faith-based community in jurisdictions across the U.S.

According to Garvester Kelley, Senior Project Manager for Public/Private Ventures, the research aimed to determine whether faith-based organizations collaborated well with juvenile justice agencies and if these types of collaborations were effective overall.

The programs were geared toward offering mentoring, following up with the juveniles on their education, improving job readiness and providing regular case management.

"It is the thread of case management that has been the key. You are talking about a population of young people who have problems; it's the follow up and getting them access to services and having caring adults in their lives [that is important]," said Kelley.

The Public/Private Ventures research showed that faith-based organizations were successfully able to collaborate with juvenile justice agencies on a number of levels. It also gave some insight into the components of these programs and why they work.

"The juvenile justice organizations did not have a problem partnering with a faith-based site and they really needed a link in the community. They were able to break down barriers of mistrust and young people were fairly responsive to accepting mentors from these faith-based organizations," he said.

In talking with the youth, researchers learned that they kept coming back to the faith-based organizations because, in the words of one youth, "they said they have a lot of love for us here."

"Many of these kids - no one is paying attention to them, the peer pressure is overwhelming.

The people who care for them [in these programs] live model lives and give them someone to be accountable to," Kelley said.

The research has also helped carve out the profile of a mentor working with juveniles in these programs.

Kelley said the mentors in these programs have typically left their home communities, have gone on to college, but continue to worship where they grew up.

"They were older, more educated and that's a good thing. It also shows the young folks [that] there is a big wide world and there are things [they] can aspire to and education is the key," Kelley said.
 
Another lesson learned from the research, according to Kelley, is that the youth involved in faith-based programs are well aware of the religious connections of the program.

"They knew who they were dealing with and had a good idea of the faith commitment these folks had. The churches had to understand that you couldn't evangelize them.
These kids are hungry for a relationship and we adults know that without trust there's no relationship," he said.

And, Kelley said, one of the most important aspects of these faith-based programs is that these organizations are willing to work with youth that others are not.

"What we learned is the kids aren't the kids you find in Big Brother/Big Sister. These churches or ecumenical bodies are working with these kids who others didn't feel compelled to work with," he said.

Because of the promise of these programs, spin-offs are being created in the hopes of having similar success.

"I think you are finding there are more collaborations. What we've done [with the research] in a very small way is provide some proof in the pudding [that] these things with structure can work," said Kelley.

A new focus of funding for juvenile programs combines the faith-based community with job training. Several new demonstration projects across the country are now under way to help provide skills and support to youth in trouble.

Work and Faith Combine

The Ready4Work initiative is a combined effort between the Department of Labor and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to provide skills and work opportunities to youth as well as the supports that seem to work so well from faith-based organizations.

"We've taken the main components of mentoring, education, case management and we're doing it with young people who are coming out. The goal now is to reduce the widely published recidivism rates," said Kelley.

The programs hope to build upon the elements that Public/Private Ventures identified as key to program success and simultaneously help the youth begin to plan for a life free of crime.

"With the juveniles, the key is job training, readiness and placement and the primary emphasis is education and career planning. The goal is not to take this 16-18 year-old and say, 'We've got you a job at McDonalds.'[Instead] lets put them on a path to a two to four-year degree," Kelley said.

Straight Ahead Ministries, a non-profit organization in the Boston area, is one of the Ready4Work sites that is trying to make a difference with the juvenile population.

According to Robb Zarges, Executive Director of Straight Ahead Ministries, the non-profit has been working with at-risk youth since 1987, but was recently approached to modify its program to incorporate job readiness and preparation into its program.

"We stared with bible studies with kids who are locked up. That was the meat and potatoes of what we did. About eight years ago we started to expand into community based aftercare," he said.

Now, with the Ready4Work pilot program, the organization still connects with youth at the institution level but has put a job training twist into the curriculum. At about 90 days prior to release, the program begins to work with juveniles who fit the program criteria - 14 to18 years old with no history of sexual offense. The youth work through a curriculum that focuses on life skills, job readiness and continues to include the mentoring and case management components that the organization has always used.

"The relationship with an adult is important. Our stuff is deeply relational. We're in with the families, we are on the streets, in the communities helping them. We do home visits and we know who they hang out with," Zarges said.

The Ready4Work program also connects the youth to jobs in the community and continues to maintain the mentor/case management relationship to help the youth through any rough spots.

"One of the things that makes our population attractive is these kids come with a mentor and a case manager that supports the kid and the employer. They meet with case managers weekly and mentors meet with them once a week. That team approach is ultimately going to diminish the overturn," he said.

Youth have been placed in jobs at UPS, Starbucks, a local daycare and other local companies.

So far, Zarges said, the program has yielded a recidivism rate of between 15-17 percent.

Zarges said the program's success thus far is less about the job placement and more about learning what the youth really wants to do with his or her life.

He is certain that these types of programs will stand the test of time - long after the government funding is gone -- as long as the relational components are kept strong.

"The quality of the relationship is 80 percent of the success. The kids know our staff love them and care about them," Varges said. "We were here before the federal dollars were available and we'll be here after. We know it works."

Resources:

For information about the Mohican facility, call
(614) 466-9854

To reach Garvester Kelley at Public/Private Ventures, email
gkelley@ppv.org or call 215-557-4400

Straight Ahead Ministries - www.straightahead.org