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Date:
October 2002 -
(Download PDF Version)
Topic: Volunteer
Commitment
Question: What does your program do to increase
volunteer commitment?
Responses
from
Coordinators:
Ana Hinkle
Program Director
Valdez Youth Court
PO Box 3572
Valdez, AK 99686
Phone: (907) 835-8885
Fax: (907) 835-8886
vyc@cvinternet.net
Our community is very small so youth volunteers are involved in
many activities. It's sometimes hard to find enough kids to
participate in court. One solution that we are currently
implementing is availability calendars. I provide all the youth
volunteers with a monthly calendar and they mark the days that
they are available to participate in court or meetings.
Therefore if we need to schedule a court date I look at the
calendars provided to me and choose a date that works for all
parties involved. I know a lot of youth courts let kids sign up
for court dates, but our youth court is small so we don't
actually have that luxury. I call kids and tell them that I
really need them to volunteer for a particular case.
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Angie Dial
Teen Court Coordinator
Wells County Teen Court
Family Centered Services
123 S. Marion Street
Bluffton, IN 46714
Phone: (260) 824-8574
Fax: (260) 824-2790
WellsTeenCourt@yahoo.com
I send an e-mail request for volunteers 2
weeks prior to the hearing date. I also begin to call those who
do not have e-mail to let them know about the upcoming hearing.
I get either a verbal commitment over the phone or a written
commitment in response to my e-mail. I assign each of the
committed volunteers to specific positions -bailiff, clerk,
jury, and attorney. About 3 days prior to the hearing, each
participant (with the exception of the attorneys) receives a
reminder card in the mail stating the date, time, assigned
position, etc. (I send the case information to the attorneys as
soon as I have a commitment to that position - usually 1 - 2
weeks prior to the court date.) We award our volunteers at the
end of each year based upon accumulation of points. They receive
points for participation in hearings, meetings, etc. The only
way they can loose points is not showing up for a Teen Court
hearing that they had signed up for. Last year our volunteer
with the most accumulated points received a $50.00 savings bond.
I also awarded those within 20 points of the winner with
merchandise and certificates donated by local businesses. This
system has worked very well for us.
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Ann Francis
c/o Community Prosecutor, University Place
3631 74th Avenue W, Suite A
University Place, WA 98466
AFRANCI@co.pierce.wa.us
In reply to the question about motivating volunteers to show up,
we are just in the start up phase, but already some of the
teachers at the high school (mainly in the Business Law and
Leadership classes, but also the JROTC) are willing to give our
volunteers some "extra credit" points for showing up. With the
Teen Court that I managed in Hawaii, I offered letters of
recommendation; help to apply for scholarships to college and a
trip to the National Youth Court conference for outstanding
volunteers. Here in Washington State, I plan to ask local city
government, the local attorneys, and Rotary to all put up
scholarship money for our volunteers.
My sense is that kids are very busy, with lots of activities
that complete with Youth Court, so we have to make their
participation worth their while. See if some of the key teachers
will give some extra points to your volunteers for English,
Drama, Social Studies, Civics, or Business Law students. Point
out that colleges are now looking more favorably at applicants
with one or two LONG-TERM, CHARACTER-BUILDING type activities,
like being a youth court volunteer, instead of 5 or 6 short term
ones.
Also, a contract going in helps a kid make a commitment. We are
asking our volunteers to make a commitment of an academic year,
Oct thru June, and they (along with their parents) sign a
contract. This also helps kids to understand that we are
counting on them to appear and participate.
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Anne Dubinsky
Teen Court Coordinator
City of Lewisville Teen Court
P.O. Box 299002
Lewisville, TX 75029
Phone: (972) 219-3671
Fax: (972) 219-3414
adubinsk@cityoflewisville.com
Unfortunately, this is a common problem. Attorneys that are
assigned cases are sent paperwork about a week prior to court.
If they are no shows and did not call twice in a row, I no
longer assign them cases. I usually always have anywhere from 1
to 4 "no show" attorneys but the kids are very good about
filling in at the last minute. They do not have to ask my
permission to do so. I am just happy the cases are covered!
I generally have plenty of volunteer jurors because the youth
need service hours for their various clubs, honor society,
etc.... I recruit at the schools for these volunteers by sending
a packet of information to the teacher that sponsors the club or
society.
I sometimes remind them about court the day before with a mass
e-mail. Most of my volunteers have email addresses and this can
be a good way to remind them at the last minute.
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Antonia Hernandez
Director
Dona Ana County Teen Court
P.O. Drawer W
Mesilla, NM 88046
Phone: (505( 647-2154
Fax: (505) 647-2158
teencourt@zianet.com
What works for our program is to call volunteers one to two days
prior to hearing nights. Although they have a hearing schedule
calling gives us an opportunity to make one-on-one contact with
a volunteer. We ALWAYS ask how they are doing and more
importantly stress that we could never touch as many kids as we
do without their help!!! This makes the Teen Court process
personal for them and gives them ownership of the program.
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Barbara Jacobson
Coordinator
Dakota County Peer Court
Dakota County Attorney's Office
1560 Highway 55
Hastings, MN 55033
Phone: (651) 438-8368
Fax: (651) 438-4499
Barb.Jacobson@CO.DAKOTA.MN.US
We work through the schools in Dakota County and with teachers
who offer students extra credit in many cases for serving as
volunteer jurors. This gives them extra incentive to show up.
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Brenda Myers
Youth Court Coordinator
Project Chance Youth Court - W.A. Perry Middle School
South Carolina Department of Education
1429 Senate Street Room 706-D
Columbia, SC 29201
Phone: (803) 734-0737
Fax: (803) 734-0806
bmyers@sde.state.sc.us
When we began preparing for Youth Court, we picked Wednesday
4pm, as the day and time for youth court meetings. We meet every
Wednesday at 4pm, even when no court. We hold court every other
Wednesday at 5:30pm, but we meet at 4pm. That way there is no
confusion about court dates or times. Consistency is the key for
us. I have given my members my home number to call if there is a
problem, but so far it has worked out okay. You may want to try
calling them the evening before court to remind them and ask
them if are they going to be present. Have you thought about
holding a meeting to discuss your concerns with them? Let them
know that it is their youth court and without them it cannot
run. Ask them:
- Do they still want to participate?
- If another day and time better for them?
- Do they need more notice?
- What other activities are they involved in? (This could be
the problem)
Also, you may want to begin recruiting new
volunteers, so you will have a back up.
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Bruce Steinmetz
Program Supervisor
Bethel Teen Court
City of Eugene
870 Berntzen Road
Eugene, OR 97402
Phone: (541) 682-6376
Fax: (541) 682-8192
bruce.h.steinmetz@ci.eugene.or.us
Yeah, I know. In the workplace you'd discipline people for
unreliability, but your court members work for free, and it is
really supposed to be their program, and without them you'd have
nothing.
I've tried sending court summonses for jury or court officer
duty to students at the schools with similar results - many
didn't call to confirm attendance and thus couldn't be counted
on. I've tried e-mail with those kids that have it and found
they don't check it regularly enough to rely on. Most of our
best volunteers are students who are also involved in a lot of
other activities, often conflicting with court night. All that
works consistently for me is to get on the phone after 4:30 two
or three days before court and get commitments. I spend more
time on the phone with teenagers than most adults. But the
result is I know who's coming and they usually know what their
assignments in court will be. It also does give me a chance to
speak individually with the volunteers and, for defendants doing
jury duty, to see how they are doing on their other sentence
requirements (For their first jury duty they get only the
written summons.) The calling takes some time but to me it's
worth it to feel confident that our hearings will be
sufficiently staffed. Some kids are getting smart enough to call
me first so they can be sure to serve, or to request a
particular job assignment.
If people don't return phone messages, or don't show when
committed, I drop them from the active volunteer list. So I
guess the first step is to be sure to recruit a big enough pool
that you can require reliability, and will still have enough
volunteers when key people take leave for volleyball season,
etc.
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Susan Schwartz
Coordinator
Springfield Together Peer Court
P. O. Box 366
Springfield, OR 97477
Phone: (541) 747-0571
soaringtruth@aol.com
I always include a written request that volunteers call me to
let me know if they will be able top attend. (IN BIG bold
letters.) I also call all of them a couple of days before Court
to confirm that they will be attending. This seems to be
working. Let me know if you want a copy of the "REMINDER” that I
mail out.
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Donald Learned
Coordinator
20th Judicial Teen Court
2110 Kansas Ave
Great Bend, KS 67530-4407
Phone: (620) 793-1930
Fax: (620) 793-1977
donl@help4kansaskids.org
We do not have a problem with our volunteers. We are a small
district with only about 60,000 citizens in the five counties.
The system we use is as follows: I call each of the student
volunteers, usually on Tuesday evening prior to our Monday
trials. I know they will be home usually after school. I am paid
per hour, so this is not a problem to call after 5 pm. I ask
them if they can help us the next Monday evening. If they say
they can, then I send them a letter which they get usually on
Friday or Saturday, In this letter I tell them what job in the
court they will do, and remind them of the time and location of
the trials. I do not tell them who the defendants will be. I
have had probably 98-99% of my volunteers show up. The reason
they might not show up would be illness, or a sudden school
conflict.
We have had only 355 cases since we started in September, l997.
I was concerned at first like this person who requested help,
but this has not been a problem. The personal call really helps
us. In our on-going evaluation, the students tell me they really
like the personal call. I am sorry for the problem in this Teen
Court, which prompted this request.
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Jean Griffin
Coordinator
Irving Teen Court
City of Irving
P.O. Box 152288
Irving, TX 75015-2288
Phone: (972) 721-3601
Fax: (972) 721-2389
jgriffin@ci.irving.tx.us
Unfortunately, as with all volunteers, we run into that in our
Teen Court, too. We have our teens sign up on a date sheet at
the beginning of each 4-month term (for the Tuesday evenings
they are available--at least one/month) and publish a schedule.
Recently we have printed it wallet size and laminated them, so
the volunteers (adult and teen) may have them easily accessible.
If a teen fails to contact us (by noon) on the day of court, we
consider their absence unexcused...and, if they have two
unexcused within the term, they are automatically dropped from
the staff. Our teen volunteers have a variety of reasons for
choosing TC, not the least of which is getting hours toward
graduating with honors from high school. All of this has seemed
to help quite a bit, since we started it for the summer term.
Time will tell how much it helps during the school year! (Also,
we have some little "perks" for attending a specific number of
time (i.e. 4x=candy bar; 8x=TC ruler; 12x=gavel pin; 16x=candy
bar, etc. Some of the teens stay 3 and 4 years, so it gets
difficult thinking up "goodies", but often there are a few
favors from our adult recognition luncheon each year, so we use
those.) Some of the teens really are into earning those things
and don't want to miss!
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Jill Diedrick
Coordinator
Teen Court of Brown County
Family Services
P.O. Box 22308
Green Bay, WI 54305-2308
Phone: (920) 436-4360
Fax: (920) 432-5966
fsteencourt@familyservicesnew.org
We have court every Tuesday and Thursday
and therefore do our scheduling for Teen Court for three months
at a time taking into consideration sports schedules, etc. We do
reminder calls a week ahead of time because we had a problem
with volunteers not showing up and this helped cut down on that
and to make sure that our attorneys are always there (we have 8
attorneys a night). We schedule enough jurors that if some do
not show up, we are ok, although we wish they would all be
there. We also have an attendance policy that if a volunteer has
3 late cancellations or no-shows (a late cancellation would be
canceling after 8AM on Monday for a Tuesday court date, for
example) a determination will be made by the volunteer and the
staff if they will be allowed to continue in Teen Court. The
policy goes further in depth about a commitment to Teen Court
and responsibility. We explain this policy at training and the
importance of being responsible and how it could leave a peer in
a bad position if they just do not show up.
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Kerri Peterson
Jefferson County Teen Court
Teen Court Coordinator
Cumberland School of Law
120-2nd Court North
Birmingham, AL 35204
Phone: (205) 325-4824
Fax: (205) 325-4825
We have a demerit system in place. If a volunteer is late,
doesn't show up, arrives in inappropriate dress, acts
inappropriately for court, etc. he or she receives demerits. If
a volunteer acquires 5 demerits in a school year, they are
terminated from the program. We are very lucky that we have
enough volunteers to be able to do this. In addition, if a
volunteer is going to miss court, he or she is required to find
their own replacement and notify us of the change.
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Brian Leverenz
Community Services Administrator
New Trier Township Peer Jury
739 Elm Street
Winnetka, IL 60093
Phone: (847) 466-8203
Fax: (847) 446-1743
nttbrian@ameritech.net
In terms of attendance, are you speaking of the Teen Court Youth
Volunteers, or adult volunteers? For our teen court youth, we
are in an enviable position in that we have plenty of jurors and
a waiting list of those who would like to be in the program.
(Last year we had 60 applications for 15 vacancies created by
graduating seniors, we keep a roster of 35 jurors who typically
stay in the program until High School graduation). We keep
attendance of our jurors and have the following policy: three
unexcused absences (no phone call) or four absences of any kind
is an automatic dismissal from the program. We have plenty of
jurors who would like to be part of it so they are simply told
that someone who can better commit to the program will take
their place. For adults, attendance has not been an issue.
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Lori Wrzesinski
Director of Youth Services
Downers Grove Township
4340 Prince Street
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Peacefultoo@aol.com
Unfortunately, in all my years of working with young people, it
is not uncommon for them to "forget" to call when they are going
to miss a meeting, training, etc. Part of this, I believe, in
reflecting and speaking with others who also work with youth, is
their very busy schedules and lack of parental guidance when it
comes to follow through and commitment. The fact is, the types
of teens that are typically attracted to participate in such
programs are often involved in many activities. Even though they
may really want to participate, things inevitably overlap and if
it is a school sponsored event, those typically win out over a
non-school event simply because of the young persons perception
that the consequences of missing a school event are far more
drastic than missing a non-school event. So......what can a peer
jury administrator do?
Well, on a regular basis, we have about 50% of our peer jurors
show up to a hearing. In the beginning, when they become sworn
jurors, they are signing a code of conduct, which includes a
commitment to attend a minimum of 6 out of 12 sessions in a
given year. They are instructed to call one of four people to
report an absence, which is marked excused. If they have 3
unexcused absences, we contact them to see what is going on and
if they want to continue on the peer jury. Right now, because we
are expanding to a second site and I now have 2 more active
volunteers, we are using several ways of making sure the kids
remember a hearing is coming up. The hearing date and time is
always the same so they have it ingrained in their memory. They
are also given a hearing schedule In August of each year. Each
month, all the kids receive an e-mail reminding them of the
hearing coming up. Also, the 3 coordinator/moderators and I have
divided the group into 4 groups and each one of us is
responsible for phoning our group of kids the week prior to
their hearing. This way they will get used to one person and
know they are accountable to that person. In addition to that, I
send out monthly postcard reminders about their scheduled
hearing, designed to arrive a few days before. Also, because we
have a number of kids who are very consistent and gung ho about
the peer jury, they often remind others about the hearing and
that is something you can use......like a phone tree of peer
jurors you know you can depend on to make monthly reminder
calls.
It really is, in
part, accepting the nature of a teenager and their busy lives
and working with it. It doesn't mean just letting them slide on
their commitment; it just means we have to employ as many
methods as possible to keep them actively engaged. One more
comment on that......I think the more actively engaged they feel
in the peer jury and seeing that they make a difference, it is
motivating for them to want to be in regular attendance because
they get a good feeling.
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Lynn Langdon
Teen Court Coordinator
Humboldt County Teen Court
Boys and Girls Club Teen Center
3015 J Street
Eureka, CA 95501
Phone: (707) 444-0153
Fax: (707) 444-0915
tcourt@northcoast.com
For our program, we try to secure student volunteers in the
following ways.
- We call the students about a week and a half before the court
date and get a verbal commitment.
- We then send out at jury summons, to serve as a reminder.
- For specialty positions such as an attorney or judge, we call
them two days ahead of time to re-confirm their commitment.
We keep attendance for every court session, so if a volunteer
consistently flakes without an advance phone call, we call them
and discuss the situation. Was it a ride issue? Did something
else come up? If it is something that we can help with, we will
give them another opportunity to volunteer. If they continue to
no show, we stop calling.
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Mary Fleischmann
Program Coordinator
La Pine Teen Court
P.O. Box 2035
La Pine, OR 97739
Phone: (541) 536-5002
Fax: (541) 536-5766
Mary_Engstrom@co.deschutes.or.us
So sorry you are having this problem - that has not been an
issue in my court. What I do have youth do though is sign an
ethics promise, and a yearly teen court commitment. If they do
not follow through, then they cannot be members of the court. If
it is previous defendants who are in violation, if they do not
complete their designated times, then their case be referred to
the Juvenile Dept. for noncompliance. I do not think that
letters necessarily work well. I hold my courts on the same day
of the month, every month, no matter what ...so kids know that
is the date (i.e.: 3rd Monday of the month). I also have teen
court officers who call teens the week before to remind
them...that works very well.
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Michael Botke
Director
City of Lansing Teen Court
217 South Capitol Avenue, 7th Floor, Office 714
Lansing, MI 48933
Phone: (517) 371-2823
Fax: (517) 371-2836
teencourtlansing@cooley.edu
Here are my suggestions:
- Volunteers must feel like they have a stake / buy in / and
feel valued. I have a commitment from our local school district,
which allows me to go into government, civic, sociology classes
and train high school students to serve as jurors, bailiffs and
clerks at monthly hearings during the school year. In the Summer
Sessions I draw from a pool of students who sign up for summer
duty when they sign their Oath of Confidentiality. I also have
people in community centers and group leaders in youth
development organizations that I have approached and oriented
about the value of our program who help me recruit volunteers
for our program. I also recruit adult volunteers through two
different law schools and our local community college and
university. All of these contact points take time and must be
approach in a manner that lets them know we have a mutual stake
and benefits from working together.
- All volunteers who attend a two-hour training session and
serve at our hearings receive recognition and school credit for
their involvement. I present each volunteer with a framed
certificate; this year I am using screened printed t-shirts.
- It is very important that volunteers understand the value of
the Youth Court process and that they are an important component
and that without their involvement it cannot happen. This
process involves getting community leaders and stakeholders
involved to encourage people to get involved as volunteers. The
posters that were sent out by the National Youth Court Center
are nice; I am putting them in each of the high schools where I
recruit student volunteers and I added my own Youth Court Name
and a group photo of previous high school volunteers at the
bottom in the open space.
- If you have a local Lawyer Bar Association, supportive
judicial officials, police chief and/or school officials that
you can approach you might try developing some media attention
which would result in developing volunteer interest.
- Good materials that can be used as marketing pieces are also
nice to hand out to community groups that can help supply
volunteers. Volunteers also need to be trained and properly
oriented. I would be happy to share examples of the materials we
have developed.
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Michael Torrillo
Youth Court Coordinator
Amherst Youth Court
c/o Amherst Police Department
500 John J. Audobon Parkway
Amherst, NY 14228
Phone: (716) 689-1344
Fax: (716) 689-1310
mtorrillo@adelphia.net
Our Youth Court has an attendance policy that allows for 2
unexcused absences. All of the graduating seniors are eligible
for a $100.00 Scholarship and Certificate of Completion signed
by the Commissioner of DCJS and the Chief of Police. If they do
not adhere to the attendance policy they do not participate in
the ceremony or receive the scholarship.
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Michele Brink-Guhosky
Coordinator
Pennington County Teen Court
Pennington County State's Attorney's Office
300 Kansas City Street
Rapid City, SD 57701
Phone: (605) 394-6909
michellebg@co.pennington.sd.us
I have always battled with this issue, too. One of the ways I
have found improvement is an email list. I have almost all of
the kids' email on a distribution list that I use for
announcements, and that has been the most effective way of
correspondence. We also have set dates for court every month, so
they know each month when court is. I also send them newsletters
that have the schedule. Another method I use is a volunteer
prize drawing. Each court night, volunteers enter a drawing and
local fast food places donate free coupons and such. I also had
them all sign new volunteer agreements that state that after 2
unexcused absences, they may be asked to no longer participate.
(I used the word "may" so I can use my own judgment on it) The
best thing by far has been my relationships with the kids. I
have found that the "closer" a volunteer and I become, the more
accountability they seem to have. So, I really make an effort at
recognizing them, talking with them at court etc. and getting to
know them better. Anyway, I still have the problem, but these
are just some things I have tried that have helped.
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Michele George
Coordinator
Teen Court of Huerfano County
401 Main Street, Suite304
Walsenburg, CO 81089
Phone: (719) 742-0240
Fax: (719) 738-1267
hcteencourt@yahoo.com
Regarding how to get volunteers to appear to court. My
suggestion is to assign the cases to specific individuals. I
operate both a Adult judge/peer jury model (district court) and
a peer panel model (county court). I assign teen attorneys to
both sides in District Court and call a jury through the school.
I call at least 20 kids that way am sure to meet my minimum (3),
usually having a full 12 show. In County Court I assign teen
attorneys and also the three teen
judges. I assign all my cases at least two weeks in advance. I
make contact with my students several times before the hearing,
mentoring them through the process and also making sure they
show. This method works well for me and have not yet experienced
"no shows".
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Mike Back
Teen Court Coordinator
Dunklin County Missouri Teen Court
P. O. Box 335
Cardwell, MO 63829
Phone: (573) 654-3406
Fax: (573) 654-3898
mike@mmbenterprises.com
I have found that contact too far in advance yields very little
in terms of results. I try to make personal contact by phone 3
to 5 days in advance. Most of these calls must be made in the
evenings. This has produced the best results for us. However, we
have "no shows" from time to time also, but less than if we
handle contact by mail.
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Nathan Miller
Probation Officer
Wright County Teen Court
Wright County Court Services
10 2nd St, NW Rm 141
Buffalo, MN 55313
Phone: (763) 682-7712
nathan.miller@co.wright.mn.us
We have pretty good attendance, usually 80% or better. We spend
a lot of time during the training emphasizing the fact that if
they cannot attend, they should call. I also usually make
reminder calls the Friday before the Tuesday sessions. I think
that high school students sometimes just forget about it.
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Peggy Calliham
Coordinator
College Station Teen Court
PO Box 9960
College Station, TX 77842
Phone: (409) 764-3499
Fax: (409) 764-3894
pcalliham@ci.college-station.tx.us
One of my requirements is that on my jury notice card they must
call and let me know they received it and that they will be
there. If they fail to follow instructions I simply drop them
from my volunteer list. I cannot use irresponsible people.
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Janis Bridges
Coordinator
Restorative Justice Teen Court
c/o Barron County Restorative Justice Programs, Inc.
2850 College Drive
Rice Lake, WI 54868
Phone: (715) 736-0940
bcjrp@chibardun.net
This is my problem too! I have been
recently hired to run a teen court program and I have spent many
hours preparing e-mails, calling, and calling, and calling! I
specifically state for the volunteer to call me back to let me
know, and most do not. It is very frustrating. I was thinking
about coming up with a prize drawing, either to be done each
court night, or possibly monthly. Maybe they need an incentive.
We already provide pizza.
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Tracy Bullock
Teen Court Coordinator
Elkhart County Teen Court Program
222 Middlebury Street
Elkhart, IN 46516
Phone: (219) 294-3549
Fax: (219) 293-1630
caleb55@juno.com
In response to the volunteer commitment, I imposed an attendance
policy at the beginning of this year. I give unexcused absences
to those who do not show up and do not call. Three unexcused
absences requires that the volunteer "sit-out" for a month.
Repeated offenders would be terminated from the program.
I realize that this sounds harsh specifically since we are
dealing with volunteers. However, the program cannot work
without the personnel at the hearings. Hopefully, this is
teaching additional responsibility to my Teens. I've had
positive results from this decision. I also have a Volunteer
Agreement, which is signed at the onset of becoming a volunteer.
It states that they will be responsible for calling the director
when and if they are unable to attend a teen court hearing that
they've been asked to attend.
I send out postcards 7-10 days prior to each hearing stating the
court date and their role in the hearing. The post card reminds
them to call the director if they cannot attend.
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