Enhanced Ranch Program: Change for Double the Cost and Time

The Santa Clara County Probation Department has completed its evaluation of their new Enhanced Ranch Program and the news is mixed at best.   While violent incidences are down for kids while in the ranch, outcome for kids 12 month after leaving the program show little difference from the original ranch program.

Today the Santa Clara County Public Safety and Justice Committee will accept a report from the Probation Department on the new Enhanced Ranch Program.  Sheila Mitchell, Chief Probation Officer commissioned the report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.   The final report documents the changes that occurred at the two county ranches, the James Boys Ranch and the Muriel Wright Center, both located in South County.  The report compared two cohorts:  youth who were in the ranches from 2005-2007 before the enhanced program was implemented and a group of youth who completed the new program.  The report focuses on evaluating the violations and failures of the youth (as identified by the Probation Department) while in the facility and 12 months after leaving the program (see page 36 of report).

The new Enhance Program is loosely based on the Missouri Model where kids were removed from locked facilities and treated in smaller, homelike settings and they wore street clothes.  Although the Probation Department did change the setting to create “pods” instead of the old dormitories, the James Ranch is still surrounded by a high chain-linked fence topped with razor-wire which is exactly what the Missouri Model removed.   The study refers to the facilities as “open” omitting the fact of the wire.  Oh, well, maybe kids don’t see the wire from their comfy new couches.    Also, kids are still required to wear uniforms in the facility, not their own clothes which is a key component of the Missouri Model.  The report does state that the probation department hopes to change the uniforms to street clothes soon.

There are several questions I have about the evaluation such as the cost of the program before and after the changes.  The staff ratio during the day are now 1:6 while before were 1:15.  Also, kids stay an average of 8 months now with 6 months of aftercare while before they stayed 4-5 months.  For double the cost and double the time 28% of the kids in the new program were rearrested while 31% in the old program were rearrested — only a 3% improvement.  Nine percent had a probation violation compared to 11% from the old program.   Not exactly stellar outcomes for the program.  The report does say that these outcomes are “promising” but  “not definitive” which means not much change at all.  In other words, the jury is out on whether there is really any long-term impact on the Enhanced Ranch Program.

I have talked to kids who stayed in the old ranch program and the new one.  They agree the staff are nicer and there are better services.  However, they complain that they waited months in juvenile hall to get into the program and while in the hall did nothing but sit around in their cells for hours.  The real issues is that there is little programming in juvenile hall where less serious offenders wait for months to either go to the ranch or to a placement or just go home.  Santa Clara County has one of the longer stays for kids in juvenile hall than any other large facility in the state.  I hope that can retrain staff in juvenile hall and start releasing these kids sooner to community based programs.

The report also shows that the ranch kids are now younger and 80% are Latino and 78% male.   The report does not identify the percentage of Latinos in the first cohort group although it does breakdown age for both groups.  I would hope we are not sending even more Latinos to the Ranches than before.  If so, it would really show a failure of our Juvenile Justice Detention Reform effort which had the goal to reduce the overconfinement of kids of color.

Questions I still want answered:  are the kids in the ranches really failing group homes before being sent to the ranches?  How do they define group home failures?  Kids often leave group homes which are truly in an open setting without permission but they usually return.  Often group homes now complain that probation is quick to remove kids from their programs and “violate” them when before kids were given more chances to settle into the programs.

If they are taking kids that would normally be sent to California Youth Authority why aren’t they taking the most serious violent offenders like 707 violators?  Why aren’t they taking kids with serious alcohol and substance abuse problems when they refer these kids to open group homes?  Also, with all the cutbacks to community based programs this year, are the aftercare programs and other services gone and what new programs are planned?

Stay tuned as I explore these questions more.

Denny’s Grand Slam and N.E.R.F.s — Jesse Goes Home

On Monday Jesse left Bill Wilson Center’s shelter and went to his new home.  Jesse has been someone I have been following closely because of a Federal monitoring visit soon after he arrived and a speech I made at our annual building dreams luncheon.

A little bit about Jesse (not his real name).  The 15-year-old boy came to us 3 months ago after a “dine and dive” incident at a local Denny’s.  Jesse had gone out to eat with some friends and decided to run out on the bill.  The manager caught them and called the police.  While the other kids were picked up by their parents from juvenile hall, Jesse’s mom did not want him back.  Bill Wilson Center was called and we took him into our shelter.  After calling his mom we soon learned that she had a life-long drug and alcohol problem and was now homeless, living with friends.  Jesse was often hungry.  Jesse was out of her control.

When Federal monitors reviewed Jesse’s chart they claimed that he did not meet the funding criteria for being homeless under the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act because he had been charged with a crime.  He belonged to the juvenile justice system not our runaway program.  We disagreed and prevailed the next day.  A few days later I shared this story with our 600 guests at our annual fund-raising luncheon.  By then we had gotten the court to drop the charges on Jesse, and the county social services agency had agreed to place him with us as an emergency foster care placement.  The future was looking brighter.

While working with Jesse on his issues with anger and school performance, staff at the Bill Wilson Center convinced his mom to sign herself into residential drug treatment.  She has a long way to go before she is well, but Jesse is visiting her twice a week.  Now the question of where Jesse could go live.  It looked like a long-term placement in a group home may be the only option.

With the County Social Services Agency taking the lead, a TDM (Team Decision Making) meeting was arranged.   The purpose of the meeting was to bring all Jesse’s family and adult friends together to brain-storm on where he could live.  Santa Clara County follows the youth permanency model which focuses on placing kids with family members not in foster care.  The State of California Department of Health and Human Services has several best practice initiatives listed that describes the Family Finding model used to track down Jesse’s family contact.  At the TDM meeting Jesse’s “cousin” stepped up and asked Jesse to live with her.  Jesse has known this family his entire life and was close to her three young children.  A social worker described his cousin as a N.E.R.F.  – Not Even Related Family.  The cousin listed her rules that Jesse had to abide by and he agreed.  Jesse had his new home!

Again, with the help of many others, Bill Wilson Center reunited a homeless youth with family.  Jesse will continue to come to Bill Wilson Center for group and individual counseling in aftercare.  He will continue visitation with his mom and we will be there to provide family support when needed.  Jesse was so happy when he left to live with his new family. Jesse finally got a real grand slam!

Good Kids Also Need Support From A Caring Adult

Yesterday I was sitting with a group of kids over at the Bill Wilson Center shelter filming some background shots for a short film about our services. Because we protect the identity of our shelter kids, we asked for volunteers to bring in their own kids to stand in for our clients. We were having a great time talking and shooting pool…I think I was winning, when too soon the group background filming was over. The last filming was to be a shot of me sitting and talking with one of the kids. To make the scene appear believable, I asked the girl how she was getting along with her mom these days. Suddenly I was listening to her story of how she wished she received more attention from her parents, who seemed to focus most of their time on her younger brother who was always in trouble.

At that moment, I realized how little time it takes to ask a young person how she is feeling, and then to just sit and listen. She wasn’t really expecting any answers from me – she just wanted someone to hear what she was saying. She was feeling invisible because she was the good kid who did not cause problems. At the end of the filming we got up and I gave her a hug and wished her luck.

The Search Institute has developed 40 assets that it believes all children need to thrive. Connecting to a caring adult other than a family member is one of the identified assets. Youth organizations and schools throughout the country have embraced the concept of kids needing protective “assets” to grow. This is one of Bill Wilson Center’s core values to connect all young people to the community so they can become productive adults.

Remembering a 17-Year-Old Runaway Who Died Alone

Tamara Thompson, a 17-year-old resident of Mountain View, was killed last Monday night in Oakland, after being sexually assaulted. (San Jose Mercury News, 4/04/09). Police are investigating it as a homicide. The girl had been in the Santa Clara County Juvenile Ranch but was allowed to visit home on weekends. Unfortunately, four weeks ago she ran away, perhaps to hook up with a boyfriend in Oakland.

I hope Tamara’s life and death aren’t soon forgotten. I never met Tamara nor was Tamara ever seen at the Bill Wilson Center. However, we see many like Tamara every year – a girl with hopes and dreams who somehow got off track and ended up in Juvenile Hall.

Recently, we moved our Quetzal House program to Mountain View. This program works with troubled girls like Tamara. We also have two host family homes that can also shelter runaways. I only hope the next Tamara is sent our way before being sentenced to the County Juvenile Ranch. Often juvenile probation and the court are quick to order girls to the secure Ranch rather than seek alternatives in the community. Probation staff systematically send girls off to the Ranch without seeking community alternatives first.

Once allowed back home these girls often revert back to old patterns unless other help is provided for them in their home communities. When Tamara was allowed to visit home on the weekends, she did what many girls do – she took off to visit a boyfriend. The consequence for this action was steep — once she spent a night away from home she was in violation of her court order and a warrant was issued for her arrest. She would have known this and most likely was afraid to return to be locked up in Juvenile Hall. So, instead, she stayed on the run, far enough away from the local authorities. Oakland is not safe for girls on the run.

I wish Tamara knew to call Bill Wilson Center or the Status Offenders Services Network. We would have arranged to pick her up and have her stay at our youth shelter. I hope her probation officer and the supervisors from the Ranch will remember Tamara. The Chief Probation Officer should call a group together to review her situation and see if something different could have been done for her.

Preventing Poverty While We Are Ending Poverty

Bill Wilson Center’s long-range vision is to prevent poverty.   Yesterday I was part of a discussion with other homeless housing providers on how we can end poverty in Santa Clara County.   Catholic Charities is launching an effort to reduce poverty in Santa Clara County by 50% by the year 2020.  Bill Wilson Center is part of this movement.  City of San Jose officials through the Destination: Home Program have committed to end chronic homelessness by funneling more resources to that population.  Both have joined forces to help end one of the more vexing problems in San Jose and Santa Clara County: getting the chronic homeless population into housing.

Bill Wilson Center provides supportive and housing services to homeless youth and youth aging out of foster care and other institutions.  By federal definition, this population does not fit the “chronic homeless” category.  Neither do seniors living on a fixed income at the poverty level, or women who are victims of domestic violence living in emergency shelters.  While nonprofit agencies serving these groups applaud the effort to end chronic homelessness they are concerned that limited resources may be redirected away from their services.  How do we assure that we prevent poverty by serving youth, seniors, and victims of domestic violence and at the same time end poverty by housing the chronic homeless?

I believe we can do both, however, we need representation from various groups to be at the leadership level on Destination: Home when funding and policy decisions are being made.  Up to now, the Blue Ribbon Commission to End Chronic Homelessness and Destination: Home have only representation from public officials, foundations, United Way, and private corporations.   The nonprofit representation has been only at the coalition level.

The argument for not including individual nonprofit representation on the leadership groups has been that one nonprofit cannot represent another.  This is the same argument that occurs throughout the United States from the city to the state level.   If one city can represent all cities on the leadership or executive level why can’t the same occur for a nonprofit agency?  If we are to end poverty we need to start including the agencies that are on the ground floor doing the work.  In the nonprofit field we have been choosing leaders to represent our issues on numerous collaborations for many years.

A second common argument for not including nonprofit representation is that funding decisions may be made by the leadership group and an agency may steer funds their way.  Policies and procedures can be put in place to assure no “self-dealing” takes place.

Housing providers serving the chronic homeless and nonprofits working with homeless youth, victims of domestic violence, or other “non-chronic homeless” populations need to be represented at all decision-making levels  to prevent poverty while we are ending it.    Bill Wilson Center will continue advocating for connecting all young people to the community with the necessary resources to prevent poverty.  That includes speaking out for more inclusive public policy.

A Kid Shouldn’t Need a Mental Health Diagnosis to Get Help

It seems like we spend a lot of time these days diagnosing our kids. We know teenagers can be frustrating and difficult, but does every rowdy boy really have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)? If a young person is in foster care or juvenile hall the system scrutinizes them for a variety of disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Bi-Polar, Depression, and on and on. I would be depressed, too, if I were locked up in juvenile hall! And, unfortunately, funding for mental health services often adds to the problem – if you want counseling and have Medi-Cal you need a mental health diagnosis.

In the 1970s, many kids ended up in mental hospitals or secure facilities because they were out of their parents’ control and the parents paid for a mental illness diagnosis. As a young advocate, I joined others in changing the federal and state laws so that kids were not placed in detention solely for being a runaway or truant. However, parents often skirted the law by getting their kid diagnosed with a mental illness and having them committed to a mental institution where a young person under 18 had no rights to a fitness or competency hearing like adults had. The parents were often desperate but the kids were powerless. As a different, more “kinder” approach, runaway youth centers such as Bill Wilson House sprang up across the nation and the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act became the law in 1974. These programs brought kids and parents together to work out their problems and teach them the skills to prevent future crises.  This is an example of Bill Wilson Center’s “lease restrictive environment” guiding principle.

Today the funding limit from the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (maximum grant of $200,000) is a fraction of the needed funding to operate runaway centers. Shelters must pull in private funding as well as local government funds to keep the doors open. Medi-Cal was always an option for runaways with mental health problems but most centers shied away from the funding due to its bureaucratic paperwork and stigma it placed on kids. On the other hand, there were many homeless kids with serious mental illness not getting treated. After much debate, Bill Wilson Center joined the ranks of other runaway programs and began accepting Medi-Cal in 2007. I will be blogging off and on about the impact of Medi-Cal and its implications on our services.

Extending Foster Care to Age 21 — Erasing the Reagan Years

Yesterday California legislators vowed to extend foster care to age 21 by introducing Assembly Bill 12 that would match federal funding, thus enabling foster parents to receive financial support for youth beyond age 18.  Everyone was celebrating after a report from universities of Washington and Chicago proved what was a no-brainer to most of us, that young people do better if they can stay home and attend college until age 21.

Forcing foster kids to leave home at age 18 is actually the result of the Reagan years when welfare was limited and foster care greatly reduced.  In the mid 70s kids could stay in foster care until age 20 if they were enrolled in college.  Many foster kids stayed home and attended community college until the benefits ran out.  That all changed with one of many reorganizations of the federal welfare system.  Foster care changed and the payments ended at age 18.

One of the many problems with foster care funding is that is has always been tied to Welfare programs.  While the general public supports funding foster care they often do not support general welfare programs for adults.   The unfortunate joining of the two programs has brought down the safety net for foster care over the past two decades.   One example is the increase of foster home payment to foster parents which has remained extremely low in California.  The first budget increase eliminated every year is to welfare recipients which includes foster parents.

The government is beginning to address the problems of foster youth by introducing programs to support kids aging out of foster care.  AB 12 would take an additional step by increasing foster care coverage to age 21.  As the recent study by Chapin Hall on foster youth in California college programs points out, kids still struggle with graduating from college even with support.   Most worry about housing after college and financial support when the aid runs out.   There is no home for these young adults to return to after leaving school.  Many of them report a sense of deep isolation.   We have a long way to go before we build lasting connections to the community for these high risk young people.  With the community’s support, Bill Wilson Center will continue to work hard at building connections to our community for youth leaving foster care.

Our Best Practice — No Fail Philosophy When Serving Kids

Sorry, but I am really getting a bit tired of folks using terms such as “best practices” or “promising practices” or “evidence based” to be describing how we should be serving kids at our runaway shelter or counseling center.   Don’t get me wrong, I am all for studying what works and what doesn’t in youth services.

We all can give examples of tons of money going to programs that just don’t work — remember “Scared Straight“?  The government poured millions into a program that took kids to prisons to talk to prisoners to scare them into staying away from a life of crime.   There were all kinds of testimonials from kids after leaving the prisons about how they were never going to end up there.  The media loved the program.  Only problem was after studying the program the research showed that it did not have any long term affect with keeping kids out of jail.   Of course, sometimes we just like to keep funding programs for other reasons — like D.A.R.E. My son went through this program when he was in 5th Grade.  the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program usually taught by Community Relations Specialists with Police Departments has shown to have no long term impact on whether kids use drugs later in life.  Here is one of many studies debunking the program.   However, the research did show that kids felt better about police officers after the training.

At Bill Wilson Center, we have been using many of the current “best practices” but we just call them by different names.  For example, when serving chronic runaway and homeless youth in our shelter we have a “no fail” philosophy.  I often like to say that programs fail, not kids.   Anyone who has been around teenagers know that they need to test limits and break rules.  Youth who have been living on the street for a long time are used to people turning them away for breaking rules.  Sometimes a “no fail” rule is tough on staff — they have to be trained and learn how to use other consequences to work with difficult kids.  However, our research shows that kids rank our staff very high because we make them feel like part of a family.  This best practice seems pretty obvious — if you keep trying sooner or later you and the kid will get it right!

Teenager is a Negative Word

Young people, that is what Glynis Shea, Communications Coordinator for the Division of Adolescent Health at the University of Minnesota suggested to a group of nonprofit CEOs that we call teenagers if we want to appeal to the vast majority of Americans.  I recently attended an all day workshop on public relations for youth serving agencies.  Her presentation was  great although I was totally surprised by some of her research on kids (not such a negative word).  Apparently, there have been numerous studies and focus groups with ordinary citizens on how they feel when they hear certain words relating to young people.  When groups were asked how they felt about the word “teenager” many stated they equated the word with juvenile delinquents, kids out of control, troubled kids, and on and on.   Add terms like “at-risk,” “abused,” or “street” and the negative feelings were even stronger.   It seems like it was either the kids’ or the parents’ fault for their problems or situation.  So, instead of using the word “teenager” we should try more neutral words such as kids and youth in our brochures and newsletters.   Gosh, just when my 13-year-old son was so proud that he could now be called a teenager!  Below is a link to her interesting work on adolescents at the University of Minnesota and selling youth development.

http://www.moappp.org/Documents/events/2006/framenotes2.pdf

Are Girls More Violent?

We hear stories every day that girls and boys today are more violent and are committing more serious crimes.  But hold on a moment — is it true? — or are we just charging kids with more serious crimes?  According to a report issued by the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in May 2008, it may be that we are just arresting girls now and charging them for serious offenses when in the past they would have been let go with a warning.  Since 9/11 and Columbine there is “zero tolerance” for threats or adolescent missteps. The report cites that some of the increase is due to tougher charges.  Santa Clara County also recently completed its own study on women in the justice system which concluded that girls are more violent and committing more serious crimes.  However, there is no footnote that it may be that school districts and the police are being less tolerant and insisting on charging kids for these crimes.

What all the researchers do agree on is that most of these girls have experienced trauma and domestic violence in their homes and lives.  In Santa Clara County, 70% of the girls in juvenile hall interviewed for the study reported that they had been in foster care, according to Sheila Mitchell, Chief Probation Officer.  Obviously, we have a lot more work to do to get these kids connected, in the right way, to the community.   I hope we can work to move these kids out of juvenile hall and to programs, like Bill Wilson Center, that can help address their past domestic violence and trauma and teach them the skills to become productive adults.