Thursday, February 03, 2011

Report: Texas At-Risk Youth Services Project

I just noticed a document from the Legislative Budget Board's website titled "Texas At-Risk Youth Services Project," (pdf), a report to the 82nd Texas Legislature dated January 2011, the Introduction to which begins as follows:
The Texas At-Risk Youth Services Project (ARYSP) is an interim research project directed by the Criminal Justice Data Analysis Team of the Legislative Budget Board (LBB). The goal of the ARYSP is to provide legislative recommendations to improve the delivery of services to at-risk youth in Texas. For purposes of this report, “at-risk youth” are defined as youth who have significant potential to enter or further penetrate the juvenile and/or criminal justice system. The ARYSP employs a multi-faceted research methodology to gain a comprehensive view of the various services available to at-risk youth in Texas and how local, state, private, non-profit, and educational entities serve at-risk youth in their communities. The recommendations contained in this report focus primarily on prevention and intervention. Prevention of criminal behavior and intervention for risk factors correlated with crime contribute to public safety and conserve long-term state funding.
Though I haven't yet had time to read these recommendations, I thought I'd pass the link along for those interested and may return to it in more detail in a future post.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Check out: Risk Factors Associated With Juvenile Delinquency. Also, Protective Factors Associated With Juvenile Delinquency.

Anonymous said...

It's been a no-brainer to many of us out here that public school personnel are the first to notice a problem with a student, but usually fail to act.

Anonymous said...

In many enterprises, a partnership exists. Take, for example, a hypothetical small pizza place in which two brothers are partners. One brother, John, stays in the back and makes the pizza. His brother Jake stays up front, takes the orders, collects the money and wipes the tables. Jake is relieved that his brother and partner John is back there taking care of business—making the pizza. John is glad he can forget about dealing with the customers and concentrate on the dough, the sauce and the other ingredients. He keeps a close eye on the oven. Since two heads are better than one, after closing time, the brothers like to bounce ideas off each other and make plans for the future of their enterprise—John and Jake’s Pizzeria. When John gets discouraged, Jake comes up with a bright idea to solve their problems. Sometimes it’s John who has the bright idea and offers the encouragement.

Now, let’s change this picture a bit. Let’s say John gets bored making pizza. One day he just doesn’t show up. Jake, now alone, has to go to the back and tend the oven, get the ingredients out, roll the dough and make twelve different kinds of pizza. Between these chores, he has to run up front to take the orders, collect the money and wipe the tables. He has to run to the kitchen and then run back up front--back and forth all day long. When Jake locates his brother and partner, John says, “Oh, I’ve decided to go solo, you’re on your own. Good luck.” We might say that a marriage and child rearing is an enterprise. When both parents are there, pitching in and making a contribution, the enterprise has a chance. Today, we often see the male partner bail out. He says, “I’m taking a hike. Good luck.” He makes no contribution. In this situation, is the child affected when one parent has to do everything alone and has no one to offer support?

05:11 said public school personnel are the first to notice a problem with a student. Is that the case? Nobody notices a problem before the child enters school? Maybe we don’t want to look and see what’s going on.

Anonymous said...

"Nobody notices a problem before the child enters school? Maybe we don’t want to look and see what’s going on."

That's right. Quite often, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And, in other cases, parents can see nothing less than perfection in their children. So yes, school personnel are usually the ones to first see a problem. If they weren't, special education referrals by teachers wouldn't be necessary.

Anonymous said...

This article is a complete waste, one of the proposed cuts is TCOOMMI not funding mental health services for TYC inmates. Just another example of the talking heads not knowing what the hands and feet are doing..

Anonymous said...

The report is not a complete waste. They make some excellent recommendations like providing mandated rehabilitative/probation services at public schools. Great idea and should be piloted.