Alternatives To Detention Program Succeeds With 95 Percent Of Youth Who Complete Program

Speaker 1: 00:00 Preventing youth from re-offending once they get in trouble with the law is part of a countywide program called alternatives to detention. K PBS is and meet the Sharm. I spoke with Mandy, Mr [inaudible], program director for South Bay community services about how successful the program has been at helping at risk youth. Speaker 2: 00:18 So what exactly is the alternatives to detention program? Speaker 3: 00:22 Sure. So alternatives to detention is a program that is countywide in San Diego. I'm from South Bay community services and we oversee that program and have since its inception in 2012 what we do is we provide 24, seven response to law enforcement, the probation department and juvenile court to try to provide a spectrum of detention alternatives for juvenile offenders who don't present a safety risk to the community and if youth are appropriate to come into our services. Um, what those services might look like is family based counseling, other types of support services that are not just for the youth but for the whole family to keep them stabilize in the community to prevent any future offenses from happening. And ideally to help to cultivate leadership in the youth. Tell me a little bit about that. Speaker 2: 01:13 The kids who actually end up in juvenile detention, what, what sorts of offenses do they commit to end up? Speaker 3: 01:20 Yeah, so there's a lot of offenses that occur. Sometimes when we get calls for alternatives to detention, it might be what we call um, misdemeanor family offenses. Maybe an incident at the home between a youth or their caregiver or a sibling in the home that might've gotten out of hand and might've led to some pushing, shoving. Sometimes we're dealing with youth who have some substance use or abuse issues or just use who might have some issues with peer pressure. Maybe they, uh, got arrested for a petty theft. Uh, so we see a lot of different things that happen with these youth I think. But the key is that they really are a lot of times getting in trouble for the first time. They have a lot of strengths that they bring to the table. And so what we're looking at is how do we effectively address their needs while keeping them in the community and in school where they have the best chance for success. Speaker 2: 02:17 So who are you primarily targeting through this program? From what you've described it, it appears that you might be going after a kids who have committed not so serious offenses, Speaker 3: 02:28 so we can target both of them. Actually the county has wonderful diversion programs for first time offenders on the lower end. So where ATD comes in is we're going to that next step up. So maybe it's not the youth first offense, but they're still pretty minor. Um, or maybe it is the first time they're in trouble, but due to the fact that maybe there's a victim in the home, uh, that's why the arresting department might not necessarily feel comfortable just leaving them at home immediately at the time of that fence. Uh, one of the key we do is, um, in providing 24, seven responses that we can put them in temporary licensed foster homes just for a cool off period while we work towards reunifying, which is a much better alternative than bringing those kids into juvenile hall for those family based offenses. And if they go into those, um, licensed foster homes temporarily, it's usually a really short say five to seven days. Speaker 3: 03:24 But our teams are taking that youth to school. Every their homeschool, which is key, keeping them involved in any positive activities they're already involved in. We have a lot of student athletes. So being able to continue that is really key in addressing the issues at home and putting them on the best pathway for success. So we've been doing this for some time. How crucial is this program? It's amazing and it's so imperative. Uh, we serve over 750 youth and families county wide each year and its really had tremendous success. Over 95% of our families that go through our program as it's this ex successfully participating in programming, no future offenses. We also have an independent evaluators through SANDAG that runs six months checks afterwards. We're still seeing over 95% of our youth being successful six months after they leave the program, not having any future offenses. Speaker 3: 04:20 So we're really creating positive change in the communities. Uh, obviously serving 750 youth and families a year. It's a big need, but we're helping to keep them successful while we're decreasing our juvenile detention population, which is huge because we're really trying to create a better society for the future too with these youth. So the 5% them who are being missed somehow are not responding. What do you think that the missing link might be there? You know, it can be multiple things. Sometimes people just aren't ready for change. Sometimes they might need an even higher level of, for instance, substance abuse treatment. We are really creative and what's great about our network of providers, even though our agency oversees at county wide, we're really a strong partnership. All of our community based organizations who are countywide providers have other contracts for hire, um, intensive services if needed. Speaker 3: 05:18 So if they are a youth who recidivate, who w ATD isn't quite meeting the needs, we can work collaboratively with the probation department, with juvenile court and within some of our other programs and resources to try to continue to help that family. So it's not like, Oh, if they get in trouble, um, we're just closing the door and saying goodbye. We're very invested in continuing to try to support that youth and family. So what's your hope going forward with this program? So our hope is always to continue our great successes, to continue, um, to strive for policy change. You know, a lot of things that we look at is how do we continue to decrease our juvenile detention population. We've done a great job at it, but we know there's always room for improvement to continue to look at. Also, how do we engage more families successfully? So as a county, we see youth of all ethnicities, and especially before they have what we call an adjudication, um, being able to remain in their communities and be successful. So we're always looking at how we can continue to achieve more success. And like you said, a 5% recidivism rate is not very high, but we'll always try. How do we get it down to four? How do we get it down to three? Nanny, Mr [inaudible], thanks so much for talking to us today. You're welcome. And she was speaking to KPBS is Amita Sharma. Speaker 4: 06:45 Uh.