A Mission Statement At Sheltering Arms

     To be homeless is to not have a home or a permanent place of residence. Nationwide, there is estimated to be 3.5 million people that are homeless, and roughly 1.35 million of them are children. It is shown that homeless rates, which are the number of sheltered beds in a city divided by the cities population, have tripled since the 1980’s (National Coalition for Homeless, 2014). Worldwide, it is estimated that 100 million children live and work on the streets. Homeless children are more at risk than anyone else, and are among the fastest growing age groups of homelessness. Single women with children represent the fastest growing group of homeless, accounting for about 40% of the people that are becoming

The strategy of CAMBA’s Park Slope Women MICA Shelter is a long-term plan of sustained growth of customer care in New York City. They are strategic when it comes to meeting the pressing needs of New York City dwellers. To begin with, they have identified that mental illness and drugs and substance abuse renders many city dwellers homeless and desperate. Most of the dwellers are hopeless with nowhere else to turn to and CAMBA’s Park Slope Women Shelter comes in as a source of hope for them. This strategy reflects the correct planning on the side of their leaders. This is evident from the fact that market share should be just adequate to cater for the present needs of the community (Drucker et al., 2008). However, over the last few years they

Every New Yorker has the right to a safe and affordable place to live in. New York’s shortage of affordable housing has reached a crisis point. Poor and elderly people throughout New York City are at a greater risk of homelessness and forced low-income residents do not have food or medical care to stay in their homes. A sinful structure of homelessness in New York City is New York’s shortage of affordable housing. Millions of New Yorkers are desperate to find affordable housing and tens of thousands are forced to live either in dirty shelters or on the streets. Recent data indicates that nearly 60,000 people, including more than 23,000 children, stay in the city’s main homeless shelter system (Guelpa). A small amount of poor renter households received a housing subsidy from the local government. Little assistance is being provided which means that most poor families and individuals that seek assistance

Rehabilitation for at risk teens has been an ongoing issue that runs deep in certain communities. When kids at young ages are exposed to stress and have to cope early on with dysfunction they are denied the opportunity to mature and conditioned to commit thinking errors that perpetuate a young offender into an adult offender. To find ways to break this cycle John Hubner accounts his time on the Giddings State School Capital Offenders Program and how a group of counselors are able to combine many strategies in rehabilitating young offenders who have committed serious crimes. Young people convicted of serious crimes are often transferred to adult prisons that institutionalize young people to prison life only increasing the likely hood of

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Office of Prevention and Victim Services provides voluntary youth crime prevention programs through the state of Florida. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice mission is to increase public safety by reducing juvenile delinquency through operative prevention, intervention and treatment services that builds up families for a turn around of a brighter future of a troubled youth. The main functions of these programs as will be indicated in this paper are designed to reduce juvenile crime and protect public safety. These programs that will be stated main focused is to help those high-risk juveniles and those who display problem behaviors such as ungovernability, truancy, running away from home and other pre-delinquent behaviors. The state of Florida addresses these problems by contracting this delinquency programs prevention services and awarding grants to this local providers throughout the state of Florida.

This paper will address the functionality of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. First, it will examine the Agency as a whole and then it will explore the individuality of sectors within the agency. Second, the paper will discuss the different ways that the agency survives and serves the community. The South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice plays a vital role in the success of at risk youth and maintaining a secure structure to assist youth that end up in troublesome situations.

Homeless families compose a fraction of the homeless population as they “represent roughly a third of the homeless population in the United States (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2010), and approximately 1.5 million children—1 in 50 youngsters—are homeless each year in the United States” (p. 389). These homeless families often struggle to find permanent residency as a collective unit. There are several types of housing situations available for homeless families such as temporary housing, transitional housing settings, and shelters, yet the housing situation for homeless families often causes stress for families as stability and a secure home is always in question. “The lack of stable, consistent housing is the central, defining characteristic of families experiencing homelessness, distinguishing them and their experience(s) from those with stable housing who experience other correlated conditions (e.g., poverty)” (Kilmer, Cook, Crusto, Strater, and Haber, 2012, p. 394). Homeless families often seek different types of housing usually by first reaching out to temporary shelters in emergency situations like domestic violence that often lead to homelessness, which provide services for children and families. There are many challenges families encounter in the process of seeking permanent housing.

When thinking of reforming the juvenile justice system one has to think; what can we do to make this better for everyone involve? There are some programs that can be implemented when trying to make a change in the juvenile system. The main thing is getting parents or the guardian more involved in the child’s whereabouts. Secondly the community where the youth will have a place to go and have something more constructive to do to keep them out of trouble. Law enforcement can get involved in giving ride along and having visits to the local jails or prisons from the youth to talk to some of the inmates. Crime in life isn’t racist at all it has a no age limit, no certain gender and no social status for most of those whom decide to partake in a criminal activity. From the beginning juveniles have been an issue with law enforcement, the question has always arisen of whom will take control without cruel and unusual punishment and assist with the rehabilitation and prevention future crime actions.

One of the main goals of the program is to engage the youth in the community which they live by holding them accountable for their behavior. Public safety is also a main goal which is achieved through monitoring youth activities in the community and in the home. Youth learn various decision-making techniques through cognitive behavioral therapy. Aggression Replacement Training (ART) has been incorporated in the youth’s individual program to help address anger and social skills.

The two most significant ways that community justice workers ensure the progress toward reintegration is through the combined strategies of treatment programs and problem-solving efforts (Clear, Cadora, Miller, Hess, & Orthmann, 2011). In my Community Justice Center, a judge will be available to hear cases like family problems, low-level felonies and misdemeanors such as drug possession and other quality-of-life offenses and try to provide more sentencing options. These alternative sentencing requires the criminal offenders to “give back” but displaying visible restitution such as cleaning up the garbage, restoring damaged properties and other volunteer work. The criminal offenders can offer public speaking to educate other adolescents to discourage

There are many studies to support that juveniles’ that fail in school and other school-related factors are related to delinquent behavior (Elrod & Ryder, 2011, p. 64). Mitchell and Leachmen (2014) make several strong arguments for spending more on childhood education and cutting corrections budgets, but besides education there need to be a strong support system for the juvenile. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention suggests more programs need to be implemented to help reduce problems juveniles are faced with, and the community, schools, families, healthcare professionals, and law enforcement need to be involved (Schmalleger, 2005, p. 652). Education is a great start and necessary part of a successful program to help keep juveniles from not becoming another incarceration

Many Americans believe it is not too late to assist in pulling these young men and women out of their criminal rut. But it must be shown that certain rehabilitative programs are worth the time, effort, and money needed to put them into play. In this regard, programs designed for the lowering of recidivism rates for already institutionalized offenders are especially important. Not only do effective rehabilitation programs help to ensure the offender a crime-free future, but they also benefit communities and neighborhoods in reducing recidivism rates. Despite the damper put on intervention programs by strict authoritarian responses to youth violence over the last few decades, today there is an increasing emphasis on rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system. The system recognizes that youths are different from adults in their capacity to commit crime, and also their ability to recover from a criminal past and become responsible and law-abiding. Using effective punishment that won’t forfeit life chances as adults is regarded as an effective policy.

The younger generation is important to the future of the country, yet juvenile crime continues to be a serious problem in the United States. Over the years the numbers have decreased, but the data shows that the number of youth committing crimes in the US is still in the millions. The focus of detention centers, court agencies, juvenile justice policymakers, and parents alike is to reduce the rate and the occurrence of recidivism among the juvenile population. Recidivism is the tendency of persons with prior criminal history, to be arrested, convicted, or incarcerated repeatedly. The facilities that deal with the criminal population look at recidivism to determine how successful institutional programs are and what is and is not working. There has been much research done on what contributes to recidivism. Recidivism is a complex problem with numerous predictors, but in this research paper, two areas will be discussed. I will focus on the area of parenting and the effects it has on the adolescents who fall victim to recidivism, as well as neighborhood-level factors that influence recidivism. While looking at these two factors that maintain the rate of recidivism, I will present current solutions that have been employed to attempt to reduce the trend, through community and institutionally based programs. The research and analysis presented in this paper should offer valuable insight for social workers, juvenile justice professionals, policymakers and any person who

This article was written by Phame M. Camarena, Kris Minor, Theresa Melmer, and Cheryl Ferrie. Phame Camarena, currently a professor at Central Michigan University and formerly a contributor at Pennsylvania State University, has a background in Humanities and has shared his knowledge three publications as an individual and over 100 articles as part of a group. Kris Minor is serving as the Chief Operating Officer of the Forum for Youth Investment and was previously senior assistant and chief of staff to the CEO of the U.S. Corporation for National and Community Service. He brings his experience in youth development and Bachelors in Human Services to support arguments made in the article. Other authors, Theresa Melmer and Cheryl Ferrie also aided in the research involved.

The United States continues to be the leading country worldwide in youth incarceration in the world, with over 60,000 youth in detention facilities across the country (American Civil Liberties Union, 2016). Per Helgeson and Schneider, behavioral issues emerge as a result of youth feeling disconnected, and “under-valued” in their community (2015). Brennan, Barnett, and McGrath completed a study in 2009 that linked youth engagement and community activities to; improved leadership skills, problem solving skills, decision making skills, and a sense of belonging and purpose within their community (2009). “Empowering youth and allowing them the opportunity to participate in the community has shown to benefit their development greatly” (Brennan and Barnett 2009).Prevention programs that promote positive youth development, aids youth prior to criminal activity. These programs also promote involvement in education, workplace, and community as the leading progressive interventions of delinquency prevention. (Fernandes-Alcantara, 2014). This research will look to see if there is a correlation between youth arrest/criminal activity and access to/engagement in community based youth programs.