Kids and Crime: Inside the Juvenile Justice System, Part 3

We continue our five-part series on Kids and Crime: Inside the Juvenile Justice System. Monday we looked at what local school districts are doing to steer kids into on-campus programs to help them stay on-track when they get into trouble.

Tuesday we introduced you to Youth Accountability Teams or YAT, an early intervention program that works with youth referred to the probation department by the school districts after a child’s first arrest.

Now we focus on the role family and mental health play in the success of an at risk child. Local school districts and the county offer multiple resources. Tonight we focus on one recommended by the probation department, it’s called the Parent Project.

“The parents are critical!” If you think about a teenager and all that’s going on in their world, that parent and that family unit are the most important thing to their success.”

Mark Hake, Riverside County’s Chief Probation Officer has seen a lot in his decades long career. He’s worked at juvenile hall. He knows home life for some teens can be rough and there’s no support, but he says, in some cases parents tend to “give up” on their kids who continually get into trouble. “We have a greater success rate if we’re able to provide services with that youth remaining in the home and having the parent involved,” says Hake.

Enter the Parent Project. A County run free ten week class for parents who are having trouble dealing with their out of control or strong willed teens. It’s a hands-on inter-active group setting with instructors who are certified to teach the class. The goal is to empower parents and transform teens.

According to Anthony Gutierrez, a Riverside County Deputy Probation Officer and a facilitator of the Parent Project, “It doesn’t have to be criminal or serious at risk behavior, it could be grades dropping, it could be talking back, not completing chores, not doing their homework, you know, it starts somewhere, you want to get it where it starts.” Deputy Probation Officer Suzy Hernandez, also a facilitator of the program says, “They have to come in with an open mind, these are tips that have been put together by parents like you.”

Gutierrez and Hernandez are certified to teach the Parent Program. Their teachings follow an instruction book received by parents when they sign-up. Both, light up when talking about how just one class changes a parent’s perspective. The focus is how to communicate and listen to your child and to navigate through the bad behavior. According the Hernandez, “At the end of every week we have the steps of success, it’s like a homework assignment so whatever they learned that week they’re going to take it home and practice. They’ll come back next week and give feedback on what they learned and you can see how excited they are.”

Sometimes though, the classes are not enough and family counseling and therapy comes into play. Some at-risk teens are referred to the county’s mental health department for help. Here in the Coachella Valley if therapy is recommended it becomes a family affair. “We provide an in-home evidence based practice where we see the child and the family a minimum of 5 hours a week in the home, we go to them,” says Alisa Huntington, a Riverside County Health Supervisor.

Huntington says, the multi-demintional family therapy program serves youth 12-18 years old. she says the 6 month family based program works because it forces parents to take responsibility for their own parenting practices instead of blaming the child for all the behaviors. She says going inside the home is key, “Actually interacting with the family in the home, gives us a really clear picture of what they’re like in their home setting. sometimes in an office it’s kind of contrived and we don’t get a real feeling of how they interact, but in their home you see the phone ringing, the dog barking, how they argue, which give us really a hands on view of how to help them.”

Getting help to our troubled kids, teens and adolescents is the goal of all of these programs.
“I can’t say enough about how important it is for parents to show that love, caring and concern and to get involved in their child’s life. and, it’s very hard these days there’s a lot of social media out there, you have kids going a milling different directions and parents are very very busy, but at the end of the day if parents aren’t spending time and engaging their child and remaining involved in their life then that’s the recipe for further problems,” says Chief Probation Officer Mark Hake.