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Counties join to stop juvenile delinquency
YOUNGSTOWN
The juvenile courts and other agencies in four Northeast Ohio counties are collaborating to reduce repeated juvenile delinquency and to keep minors in their family homes and out of institutions.
The Mahoning, Trumbull, Ashtabula and Geauga county juvenile courts are working together in a partnership, known as the Northeastern Ohio Regional Reclaim Collaborative.
The Ohio Department of Youth Services is funding this effort at $250,000 annually for up to five years.
The effort here is one of only two multicounty collaboratives funded by this program, the other being in southeast Ohio.
Besides the juvenile courts, partner organizations here include child-welfare agencies and county mental-health and recovery boards.
“The courts recognize the many benefits of collaboration and regionalization of services” that will “better serve the children and families of our communities,” said Judge Theresa Dellick of Mahoning County Juvenile Court, which is administering the collaborative.
“This grant is a vote of confidence,” by the state in the ability of the four counties to achieve program goals, Judge Dellick said.
“They’re working together to be able to serve more kids. That’s a great thing,” said Kim Jump, DYS communications chief.
“The goal is keeping them at home, keeping them at school and getting them on the path to success,” Jump added.
Under the program, local youth-services providers will come together to coordinate services to troubled youths and their families.
The partnership will facilitate mental health and alcohol and drug abuse treatment, management of anger and truancy, prevention of bullying and human trafficking and the transition from youth to adulthood.
The goal is to keep young people in their families’ homes and out of local juvenile detention, community corrections and state youth corrections centers, Jump said.
Case Western Reserve University’s Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education will monitor the Northeast Ohio group for DYS.
The university will conduct quality assurance and outcomes measurements to determine which strategies are most effective at reducing repeat delinquency and out-of-home placements.