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New Option For Troubled Kids -- Child Advocates
Pushing For Family Support Centers
By COLIN POITRAS
Courant Staff Writer
March 5, 2007
Each year, about 900 kids show up in the state's
juvenile courts in the middle of a serious crisis at home. Many
have committed no crime. They may be runaways, truants or simply
out of control.
About 300 of these so-called "status offenders"
wind up in juvenile detention cells, placed there by judges who
complain they have few other options and just want to keep the kids
safe.
With Gov. M. Jodi Rell's support, child advocates
are pushing for passage of a bill this legislative session that
would give judges a new resource in helping these kids.
The bill calls for the creation of new family
support centers in Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury
in the 2008 fiscal year and six more centers in such places as Middletown,
Stamford, Willimantic and New Britain in 2009.
The centers would keep troubled youths out of
detention and divert them from court by providing safe respite beds
for a few days, proponents say. Staff would be available on a 24-hour
basis to provide interventions for families in crisis. The centers
would try to mediate personal problems, help kids stay in school
and screen them for appropriate mental health care or trauma treatment
if they need it.
"We need to really pay attention to these youth
when they begin to be truant, act out or are beyond control," said
Martha Stone, director of the Center for Children's Advocacy at
the University of Connecticut School of Law and one of the measure's
leading proponents.
"By putting services in place early, we'll be
able to stem the rising tide of numbers of these youth burrowing
into the system," Stone said.
Connecticut's Chief Court Administrator William
J. Lavery told legislators at a recent hearing that status offenses
are "the gateway" through which many adolescents become juvenile
delinquents.
About 4,000 cases of families with service
needs come into juvenile court each year, making up about one-third
of all the cases supervised by juvenile probation officers, Lavery
said. More than 50 percent of those cases are referrals for truancy,
out of control youths or runaways.
About 900 of those children have serious or
escalating needs that require immediate intervention, he said. The
family support centers are meant to help those kids who are most
at risk.
"When fully implemented, this plan has the
potential to significantly reduce the number of status offenders
who recidivate and increase the number of kids who are successfully
staying out of the court system," Lavery said.
To some degree, Lavery, in conjunction with
the state Department of Children and Families and the judicial branch,
has little choice. A state law passed in 2005 prohibits juvenile
courts from incarcerating status offenders beginning Oct. 1.
In her proposed two-year state budget released
last month, Rell set aside $3.5 million to establish the four urban
support centers in late 2007 and early 2008. And although her budget
includes funding to continue operating those centers in 2009, it
did not include the additional $1 million officials say they need
to create the six additional support centers planned for the suburban
towns.
Stone said the up-front investment will save
the state money in the long run. According to figures provided by
the judicial branch, a two-week stay in juvenile detention costs
$3,500 to $5,600 a child. A two-week stay in a residential respite
program costs $5,400 to $6,000. By comparison, a child's involvement
in a family support center lasting two to five months would cost,
on average, $3,750 a child.
At least one youth advocate said he was concerned
about the bill's focus. Christopher Montes, an administrator for
New Britain's youth and family services division, said he supports
the bill but is worried about how it limits funds for the support
centers to contract with private providers.
Montes said the language should be expanded
to include municipal youth service bureaus, such as New Britain's,
that have an active juvenile justice component.
"The reason why youth service bureaus exist
is pretty much everything that is in this bill," said Montes, who
estimated that his office helped about 500 kids last year. New Britain
has an active juvenile review board that assesses the needs of truants
and runaways, offers them counseling and other assistance and diverts
them from court, he said.
"Why should we re-create the wheel - if it's
wobbly at all - if we could just add spokes," Montes said.
Stone said the youth service bureaus are an
integral part of the continuum of care for these children. But she
said the bureaus tend to focus on lower-risk children, and the family
support centers would be dedicated to youth in serious crisis who
need immediate and extensive intervention.
Contact Colin Poitras at cpoitras@courant.com.
Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant.
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