AG 1999 05 17 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The CCMC offices are located in Concord, NC, in close proximity to the courthouse area. There is adequate room for the training of small groups of 18 or less. Mediation sessions are held at the CCMC and truancy mediation sessions will be held there as ,,veil TC volunteer training is conducted at the CCMC with the actual TC sessions held at the county governmental center. Teens who are instructed by the ]~C jury to perform community service will be placed at one or more area non-profits, civic groups, or governmental agencies. The CCMC will maintain liability insurance and accidental insurance coverage due to youth involvement in TC activities. One of the areas of concern which may effect the success of TC would be inadequate use of the program and its components by the referral sources. The response oft_he community's youth to the need for TC volunteers was inmaediate and very adequate. The referred juvenile offenders have generally been very cooperative. However, referrals for the first year of operation have been slower than expected. The administration of the Kannapolis City Schools, after initially endorsing TC, decided to wait and become involved after the program's first year of operation. No direct referrals have come from the school adminis~'ators but several have come from SRO's. The administration of the Kannapolis City Schools has been contacted requesting that a system representative be assigned to the TC Advisory Board. This should help with disseminating information about TC and its progress. Most of the referrals have come fi.om the O J J, with most having been done as a form of diversion. Revisions made by the state legislature in the Juvenile Code should be of benefit to TC. The revised code strongly emphasizes the use of community resources for juveniles committing minor misdemeanors, especially first-time offenders, and specifically mentions TC as a diversion resource. Under the current Juvenile Code, there is little recourse for the OJJ if referred youth do not comply with TC. However, effective in July of 1999, OJJ Court Counselors performing intake duties will be allowed to sign "contracts" with juveniles concerning the use of and compliance with community resources as a condition of court diversion. Failure to do so may result in further court intervention. This code change should assist lC in receiving more referrals and with TC compliance by the referred juveniles. CCMC staffwill step up efforts to promote the use of TC by school administrators and law enforcement personnel (non-SRO's) by contacting all of the middle and high schools again within the next few months. At that time, the newest component of Teen Court, Truancy Mediation (TM) will be presented to school personnel as a resource. The second concern of the CCMC pertains to TM. CCMC staffwill emphasize TM as a prevention/early intervention resource for youth. Factors which may negatively effect the success of TM may include: referrals of children with a long history of truancy; severe emotional, educational, or family problems; parents not supportive of intervention measures; or students who have missed too many days to feasibly receive class credit, even if they respond well to TM. CCMC staffwill meet with the Community Intervention Team (CIT), an interdisciplinary community-based group, and with the O J J, within the next few months, to discuss these issues. Several factors point to the potential for TC programs and their components to have a positive impact upon the juveniles involved, their family members, the TC youth volunteers, and the community. There are currently an estimated 500 TC programs in the United States, the first one beginning in 1976 in Texas, and ten TC programs in North Carolina. Several federal agencies have begun to promote the implementation of TC programs and have combined forces to write a federally sponsored guide to the development, implementation, and evaluation of such programs. The fact that 51 of the community's youth have begun participation in TC in a relatively short period of time, that six out of seven youth scheduled for TC hearings have attended those hearings, and that all six have shown improvements in attitude and behavior, demonstrates the potential for success of the CCMC's TC ?rogram The addition of TM as a component of TC will offer a resource to the community to combat the alarming truancy rate and its correlation to the high incidence of delinquency for students involved in truant behavior. The success of truancy prevention/intervention services in other states/counties demonstrates its potential for this community. The use of trained, neutral mediators to work with referred youth, their parents/custodians, and school personnel versus more adversarial procedures has proven to produce positive results. Other truancy-related programs not only report improvements in school attendance, but point to the value of offering a relaxed and neutral environment in which participants feet more free to discuss issues affecting school attendance and are more receptive to referrals to other community resources. Truancy Mediation program criteria, referral, screening, and admission procedures, daily program activities, termination procedures, and interaction with referral sources, the referred youth and their parents/custodians, and the OJJ are as follows: Children referred must be between the ages of I 1-15 (not yet 16) and currently enrolled in school. · They may be referred by the OJJ, school personnel such as attendance counselors, social workers, principals, and assistant principals, and by the Community Intervention Team using a written referral form and after discussing the referral with the student and their parent/custodian and gaining their consent to participate · For students attending schools with block scheduling, they must be referred before or at the sixth unexcused day; those attending schools that are not on block scheduling must be referred before they have accumulaled 10 unexcuscd absences.