Topic: Peer Mentoring

Question: Our Youth Court is interested in a peer mentoring program. We would like to see positive role modeling between youth court members and the offenders. The main idea is having a court member assigned to a case to be able to connect w/ the offender in order to help the offender complete their sentence, and to be comfortable with another young person. By having a court member working closely with an offender we are hoping to be able to work successfully with all youth involved in order to accomplish our goals. Any information on this type of program for youth courts?

Responses from Coordinators:

Brenda Myers
Youth Court Coordinator
South Carolina Department of Education
1429 Senate Street, Ste. 706-D
Columbia, SC 29201-3799
Phone: (803) 734-0737
Fax: (803) 734-0806
bmyers@sde.state.sc.us

You might want to contact the Utah Youth court that was used in the ABA training video, they use the peer jury model and they assign youth volunteers to be mentors to their offenders. I am sure they would be glad to help you. I am using lawyers from the Young Lawyers Association to be mentors to my offenders.

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Erin Schellhardt
Youth Court Coordinator
Johnson County Youth Court
Johnson County Court Services
1255 East 119th Street
Olathe, KS 66061
Phone: (913) 324-6965
Fax: (913) 782-3297
erin.schellhardt@jocoks.com

We don't really have this in place, but I would suggest that the person contact Kory Norris who is the Coordinator of the Olathe Youth Court program (which is based out of the Olathe School District in our county). They have a great peer mentoring component. Her number is (913) 780-7046.

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Gretchen Klein
Ketchikan Youth Court
221 Plaza Port West
Ketchikan, AK 99901
Phone: (907) 225-2293
Fax: (907) 225-2293
gretchenk@serrc.org

We have some of our members who would like to mentor offenders etc. I think I would be great. Could Big Brother and Big Sister be a consideration for this idea? The school bases mentoring program to start with???

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Jennifer Strutz
Program Coordinator
Stayton Sublimity Youth Peer Court
362 N. Third Avenue
Stayton, OR 97383
Phone: (503 769-5749
Fax: (503) 769-7573
Jastrutz@aol.com

I have a guideline and forms that could be useful. There are special training sessions the youth mentors are involved in before taking on a mentee. As coordinator, I match up the offender and volunteer and monitor the relationship. We are new to this area in our program and this school year will implement on a regular basis.

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John Barris
Program Director
Sacramento Youth Peer Court
2239 "A" Chase Drive
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670
Phone: (916) 363-9402
Fax: (916) 363-9402
peercourt1@aol.com

In response to your request for information: Sacramento Youth Peer Court has hired two youth mentors, one male, and one female. These are 10 hrs/weekly positions and involve duties including but not limited to tutor/grade check follow-up, monitoring of jury sanction completions, spending time with youth during after-school hours, act as a support system/friend to youth and at home and/or at school visits to discuss any problems youth may have. This component, although relatively new, i.e., just in progress past six months, is working well thus far.

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Kathleen Self
Executive Director
Teen Court of Sarasota, Inc.
P.O. Box 48927
Sarasota, FL 34230

I was interested in this email. I have always thought a "buddy" type mentoring between a volunteer and a client would be beneficial. I have often thought it would be good for a defense attorney to be assigned that role as a follow-up to their involvement at the sentencing hearing. I just never have initiated it. We do strongly encourage our teen attorneys to be sure to communicate with the defendants after a case is presented i.e. when the defendants return for their jury duties. I believe it is the strong justification for allowing the kids to begin that sanction immediately so they are exposed right away to positive peer role models. I know there is some opinion that the jury duty should be served at the end of their participation but we have such good luck with kids "attitude adjustment" starting more quickly as a result of the mentoring that takes place. Most of us in Florida also have implemented some sort of a peer counseling sanction. In Sarasota County all offenders participate in a one-hour "rap" group on the nights they return for their jury duty service. Again, student volunteers are able to participate in that group. We have also found that within each group of offenders comes positive mentoring/sharing, which is why we developed what we call "Peer Circle." A leader always steps forward, especially older kids with younger kids, to address why different choices need to be made! Magical at times, a profound comment from one kid to another certainly lends credence to the whole concept of peers interacting with their peers on a positive level.

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Marian Irvin
Teen Court Coordinator
Flagler County Teen Court
c/o Clerk's Office
201 East Moody Blvd., Room 138
P.O. Box 787
Bunnell, FL 32110
Phone: (386) 437-7407
Fax: (386) 586-2116
mirvin@clerk.co.flagler.fl.us

In Flagler, we do not have a peer mentoring program. But, we have peer tutoring for those youth whose grades are below a C.

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Susan Goettsch
Director
Granite Falls Teen Court
Granite Falls Boys & Girls Club
P. O. Box 781
Monroe, WA 98272
Phone: (360) 794-4775
Fax: (360) 794-0381
susangoettsch@hotmail.com

Peer Mentoring - This is an important aspect to the role of restorative justice practices in youth courts. Our jury/or judge may opt to assign one of our officers to a respondent depending on the circumstances. They connect at school and the youth court officer may check up on how they are doing with the sanctions/help the respondent with their essay, answer questions relating to the consequences in the contract. I can't really emphasize enough how important it is to connect the respondent with the school and community. By using peer mentoring by youth court officers - you will in fact be using restorative justice practices.

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Wayne Pauluk
Teen Court Coordinator
Brown County Teen Court
1 South State
New Ulm, MN 56073
Phone: (507) 233-6620
Fax: (507) 233-6649
wayne.pauluk@co.brown.mn.us

We have never done peer mentoring, but it sounds intriguing. Potential issues:

• Both parties must be of same gender.
• Relationship must be monitored, so it remains positive and helpful.
• Concern about threats or violence.
• Is the mentor really a peer, or an authority figure?

It kind of sounds like an advocate, or "lawyer" which some teen courts use, but with an ongoing relationship. It could be a great opportunity for some of your more skilled and experienced jurors.

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Wendy Leach
Executive Director
North Star Youth Court
800 Cushman Street
Fairbanks, AK 99654
Phone: (907) 457-6792
Fax: (907) 457-6791
nsyc@mosquitonet.com

I am looking forward to seeing the responses to this question. A mentoring program is such an excellent idea. I've seen this done with some of our youth defense attorneys who go the extra mile with their clients, but it sure would be nice to have mentoring occur with each and every case.

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Russ Landry/S.C.A.L.E.S Project
Leon County Courthouse Rm 203-A
301 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, Florida 32301
Phone: (850) 488-4265
Fax: (850) 488-4264
www.nettally.com/teencourt

No formal mentor program. Have some parents and university students who will mentor or tutor children in needs.

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Les Schultz
Brown County Teen Court
P.O. Box 248
New Ulm, MN 56073
Phone: (507) 233-6620
Fax: (507) 233-6649
les.schultz@co.brown.mn.us

No we don't have any organized mentors, however the jury has recommended offenders join our "big buddy" program which can provide some educational mentoring.

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Marcia Hill
Dodgeville Teen Court
Courthouse
222 North Iowa Street
Dodgeville, IA 53533
Phone: (608) 935-0387
teencrt@mhtc.net

Mentoring programs, at least in Iowa County, are frustrating and almost hopeless. I have had many adults lined up to be mentors and they just don't show up or become too busy to stay involved. That is much harder on the kids than if they never had anyone to start with. At this time I would have to say we don't have a mentoring program.

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Marlene Todd
Lawrence County Teen Court
P.O. Box 227
Deadwood, SD 57732
Phone: (605) 578-2065
Fax: (605) 578-2065
teencrt@mato.com

We have had one mentoring case with a young man who had a very troubled family environment. We paired this young man with a local pastor and an upper classman in high school. This lasted over a year and we are happy to say was very successful, but we do not have any experience with mentoring.

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Donna Forbes
Reach for Youth

We don't have mentors to use as a tutor, however we do have mentors from our local law school. Our law school mentors pair up with the defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys and our jury panels at each session of Teen Court. These mentors assist the youth with case prep and the total presentation of the hearing along with giving the additional help to be better in their future presentations.

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Kathleen Zeitlin
Salt Lake Peer Court
645 South 200 East, #101
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Phone: (801) 322-1815
Fax: (801) 322-4498
slpeercourt@yahoo.com

Salt Lake Peer Court provides peer mentoring for every referred youth who comes before the court. The peer court members, who are 10th - 12th grade students, contact their 'mentees' once a week during the time that they have been given to complete their dispositions. They may remind them of the classes they need to attend, the community service they are performing, the paper they need to write, etc. Or they sometimes tutor, or attend a peer court activity with their mentees. The referred youth/mentee then comes before the court for the Return/Completion hearing. This gives the opportunity for the mentor and other panel members to congratulate the mentee for completing the disposition and to ask about what the mentee has learned or gained from this experience. To support the mentoring process, we have adult advisors who keep in touch with the mentors every week to offer support and guidance.

The mentoring component of our program is not always easy for the students or the advisors to maintain, but it is an essential part of our program and influences the nature of the intervention right from the beginning. One of the goals of our program is to strengthen the referred youth's ties to school, community, and positive peer role models. Mentoring most certainly is a powerful way to create a sense of community among all youth.

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