AG 1994 03 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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PROGRAM SUP~4J~RY STAT~(ENT OF PROBT.RM: Many families in Cabarrus County are experiencing significant life stressors that are translating into significant family problems. Many of these are single-parent families or blended families. Parents may exhibit a lack of parenting skills and children may not receive proper supervision because of parent's work shifts. There may be increased drug and alcohol abuse by the parents and/or children as well as increased school difficulties by the child. Within this type of environment youth may develop socially inappropriate behaviors and criminal behaviors which result in involvement and could result in out of home placement in a training school, psychiatric hospital, child caring institution, group home, or foster home. It appears that some of these delinquent and undisciplined behaviors reflect the structural and relationship problems that are occurring with the youth's family unit. PROGRP~M GOAL: The overall goal of Home-Based Services is to help keep families together while, 1) assisting identified youth in changing their delinquent and pre-delinquent behaviors, and, 2) assisting families in learning how to effectively manage behaviors and issues that are affecting the behaviors. CBA guidelines define Home-Based Services as "a method of service delivery that focuses on families of children." CBA standards further state that the home-based concept assumes that "(1) children need permanency in their family relationship for healthy development; (2) the family should be the primary caretaker of its child; (3) social services programs should make every effort to support families in this function." To help decrease inappropriate behaviors by youth the Home-Based Services program acknowledges that one of the best ways of preventing further court involvement is by working with the youth and his family in the home setting. Intensive counseling with the youth and his family is an effort to prevent expensive out-of-home placement in foster care, group care, or training school. Home-Based Services may help to remedy dysfunctional families through counseling and referral to other community agencies. This intervention may also help to prevent further deterioration of family functioning which could eventually produce additional delinquent or undisciplined behaviors by the youth. TARGET POPULATION: The population served by this program is those youth adjudicated delinquent and/or undisciplined and youth-at-risk. Referrals to the program are made by District Court Judges and Juvenile Court Counselors. This program can serve between two and ten clients at a given time depending upon the severity of the cases. It is estimated that 30 youth can be served during a one year period with the average length of service being 120 days. Some youth may require less service and others more depending upon the service plans. Some cases may be carried for a period of time following intensive treatment in order to allow for follow-up monitoring of the youth's behaviors and the families' functioning. Furthermore, this program may have a positive influence on the younger siblings of the identified youth and thus have an even greater long-term effect. Youth referred are between the ages of ten to seventeen and must have at least one parent, guardian, or custodian who will agree in writing to participate in the -- Home-Based Program. Referral forms and procedures have been developed with the Juvenile Court Staff. A social history is required from the referring agency.