Editor’s Note: This is the last of a series of stories about the Lawrence County and Laurel school districts’ Safe School/Healthy Students project.
The Lawrence County and Laurel school districts’ Safe Schools/Healthy Students project is working with law enforcement and youth court officials to keep juveniles out of the youth court system and to mentor and council those already there.
Funded through a $1 million grant from the federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, the project unites the Lawrence County and Laurel school districts, Jones and Lawrence County sheriffs and youth court judges, Pine Belt Mental Healthcare and the Southwest Mental Health Complex to help troubled youth.
“The first thing I will be doing in relations to the grant is to refer children and parents to services that are made available through the grant,” said Jones County Youth Court Judge Gaylon Harper. “The grant has allowed for the hiring of a full-time mentor coordinator.”
The mentor coordinator will sign up mentors, train them and match the children and their families with mentors. The grant allows for the hiring of a youth court liaison who will work with the school district and local mental health agents to provide the needed services for youth and their families.
“The youth court liaison will be in place to help us oversee children who have an open court file and those who are clients of mental health,” said Harper. “We will be able to refer juveniles to the youth liaisons, who provide stricter oversight than the youth court counselors are able to provide.”
Abby Cothern, Safe Schools/Healthy Students Project Coordinator, said the grant pays half the salary of mental health therapists and case managers/youth court liaisons working with the program.
“One of the elements of the grant deals with repeat offenders,” said Cothern. “Our goal is to reduce the number of youth involved in the juvenile justice system and reduce the number of repeat offenders.”
Harper applauds the projects efforts. He is glad to partner with other entities in the community to make a difference in the lives of the youth and their families.
“We will be the enforcers,” Harper said of the youth court. “Kids and families are hard headed sometimes and they won’t do anything until they are forced.”
Cothern added that the main object is to develop safe schools and healthy students in both Laurel and Lawrence county. “ We want to offer other options other than placing the children at Oakley (Training School) or some other place,” she said. “We are bringing people together to work with the children in the justice system and even before they get to that point.”
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Reducing juvenile crime, repeat offenders
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