New program to address rise in teens getting into trouble
Gangs, guns and drugs: More teens have been facing charges related to this trio since the COVID-19 pandemic, said Brian McKee, CEO of the House of the Good Shepherd in Utica.
And a $1 million state grant is going to fund a new program to help kids in crisis who’ve gotten into trouble before trouble becomes a permanent pattern in their lives, said local and state officials who announced the grant at a press conference at The House on Tuesday.
The money will be used to create a secure residential program for kids ages 13 to 17 who need help, but who could pose a risk to their families or the community, McKee said. A judge would order that a teen (a boy or a girl) be detained in the program while the teen's case moves through the courts, he said. Stays would last around two months and give staff to get to know each teen and their story, and not just what the teen did to get arrested, McKee explained.
It might be a good placement, for example, for a boy McKee heard about recently. The boy is only 11 or 12, but he stabbed his three-year-old sister through the arm with a knife, he said. He’s a boy in crisis who needs assessment and treatment, but he also can’t be allowed to leave campus because of his history of violence, McKee said.
The new program will give teens a chance to learn how to handle their frustration and anger without resorting to aggression and violence, he said.
The program and its funding spring from an ad hoc committee of state and local officials, and local nonprofits formed by Oneida County Family Court Judge Randall Caldwell about a year ago, said Assemblywoman Marianne Buttenschon, a member of that committee. Members spent a year exploring what’s needed to help kids in crisis.
This program, an alternative form of detention to help teens and prevent worse problems down the road, rose to the top, Buttenschon said. So she took the need to Speaker Carl E. Heastie who found the state funding, she said.
Heastie and Buttenschon announced the funding and presented a replica check to McKee on Tuesday as part of Heastie’s annual statewide tour.
“Our children are faced with challenges that are present and visible,” Buttenschon said. “We need to provide them with a safe, healthy and secure environment.”
The pandemic has been followed by a flood of mental health issues among youth as well as a gun epidemic, Heastie said. Young people do make mistakes, but they need places for intervention, help and second chances, he said.
“I think it takes a mature community,” Heastie said, “not to give up on them.”
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The House of the Good Shepherd already offers a number of services to local youth and families in crisis. It runs Oneida County’s foster care program. And its residential campus on Champlin Avenue provides treatment, intervention and education in an on-campus school to children with trauma and/or mental health issues.
It hosts a Raise the Age program where judges have the option of sending boys who commit crimes at ages 16 or 17. They stay in a non-secure house on campus for eight months, followed by four months of after care.
The boys currently live in a 12-bed house that has eight beds for the Raise the Age program and four in another program that is about to move to another spot on campus. The move is planned so that the building may be renovated to also accommodate four beds for the new secure program, he said.
The money was given to The House before all of the details of the program were worked out. So, it’s still being determined whether four beds will be enough or at least enough temporarily, or whether the program might have to build a space for the new program.
The House will also have to coordinate with state regulatory agencies the terms of the new program and its own concern for youth rights to figure out exactly how much security will be necessary. But the program will not include prison-like features such as razor wire, uniforms or restricting the teens to their rooms, he said.
When the House celebrated its 150th anniversary in February, McKee talked about how the number of youth living on campus had fallen because of changes in state programming, to the minimum number to support the campus’ infrastructure. He acknowledged that the campus might eventually have to be closed.
That, he said, is no longer a fear. The new program helps (although that’s not why the House is starting it), McKee said, but its other programs have also taken in more youth in the post-pandemic environment.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: House of the Good Shepherd program to help troubled teens