Topic: Volunteer Retention

Question: "I was wondering if other teen court programs have a problem with a lack of volunteers toward the end of the year (last 4-6 weeks of school)? My volunteers are so involved in so many "end of the year activities". They have been so faithful until now!  I only have the jury because they are prior defendants!! I need the other members and I need them on a regular basis so they can be prepared for the various cases (attorneys, clerk, bailiff)!  The cases are coming regularly, but the volunteers aren't!"

Responses from Coordinators:

Leslie Comeaux
Keller, Halton City, Watauga Teen Court
7101 Whitley Road
Watauga, TX 76148
817-514-5823
Fax: 817-281-1191
lcomeaux47@hotmail.com

Ahhhh yes… I think we all have the problem of busy teens.... I try to keep my attorney numbers above 12. That helps when some of them are busy or on vacation etc.

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Gwen Vieau
Orange County Peer Court
17875 Von Karman., Ste 100
Irvine, CA 92614
949-440-6757
Fax: 949-440-6710
gvieau@crfoc.com

Regarding volunteers at the end of the school year, Orange County schools get out in mid to late June.  Our last Peer Court session is scheduled in late May.  We hold our sessions at the schools and find that the end of year activities are so extensive that there is no time for Peer Court in the school schedule.

We hold June & July sessions in the mornings during summer school hours (say, 8-10 AM).  The schools target specific classes to attend.  The only time we hold Peer Court at the courthouse is in August (5-7 PM)  when we recruit students to attend as jurors through youth groups, etc.

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Anne Dubinsky
Lewisville Teen Court
P.O. Box 299002
Lewisville, TX 75029
972-219-3671
Fax: 972-219-3414
adubinsk@cityoflewisville.com

Concerning volunteer retention, I have encountered the same problem, especially during the month of May and particularly involving seniors.  I have not come up with any brilliant ideas to get them to court, other than checking with the high schools to see if they are holding a special event the same night as court.  Then I know not to expect all the volunteers that usually come and plan accordingly.

I have found the teachers pile on the work at the end of the semester along with final exams and this often keeps volunteers at home studying on court nights.

I usually schedule court in May only at the beginning of the month to avoid final exams and other end of the school year activities (hopefully!)

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Shirley Santillana
Volusia County Teen Court
120 West Indiana Avenue, Rm 242
Deland, FL 32720
904-822-5703
Fax: 904-740-5141
Ssantillana@circuit7.org

I usually have the same amount of volunteers. I think what helps is that I do not recruit all high school students. We use 7th and 8th graders as well. They tend to pick up the slack for the kids that are in high school and busy with their exams. I usually do not recruit beyond the 10th grade.

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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
Ph:  850-488-4265
fax: 850-488-4264
www.nettally.com/teencourt

Leon Co. Teen Court has solicited support of social studies teachers, student governments, National Honor Societies, and service clubs to adopt teen court as a community service job site.  Some social studies teachers will give extra credit.  The other organizations require a specific number of required jury duties.  We have the most volunteers at the end of each semester as kids put it off or need extra credit for grades so start turning out in large numbers.  For the past two months we have had over 100 jurors each week for jury duty.  Also keep a weekly ad in the calendar section of the local newspaper announcing Teen Court jury service-no cost.

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Deborah Hollifield
Denton County Teen Court
6301 Main Street, Ste. 100
The Colony, TX 75056
972-625-7575
Fax: 972-625-7578
dhollifield@co.denton.tx.us

We have the same problems, and only run Teen Court during the school year because of the difficulty in getting jurors.  We finish at the end of April because it's so hard to get anyone in during May.

We combat volunteer loss in the following ways:

Each week before court we fax an announcement to the HS and middle schools for them to announce Teen Court the day before court and another reminder the day of court.

We also send announcements addressed specifically to the teachers of the speech & debate, history and government classes.

We get our bailiffs from the JROTC program.  It is part of their curriculum to bailiff Teen Court, so they also recruit from the JROTC classes for jurors.

We ask the local Boy Scout troops to coordinate Teen Court attendance into their Citizenship in the Community merit badge process.

Finally, we have local pizza vendors who give us pizzas free or at cost.  All teen attorneys, bailiffs, spectators and jurors can come to Teen Court half an hour early for free pizza.

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Charles Hay
YMCA Ada County Youth Court
1050 West State Street
Boise, ID  83702
208-344-5501
Fax: 208-365-3010
JVhaych@ac1.co.ada.id.us

In Ada County, we get almost all of our volunteers from school, although some come from prior offenders, and some from unrelated community service obligations.  As the person stated, some of the attendance is a little harder to insure in April and May, toward the end of the year.  We get by this in two ways:

1.  We always schedule two schools to help each time, so we can usually get some extra help from one of the two when one is light.  The schools know of each other ahead of time, so they can schedule help if they feel they might be light.

2.  As to the real backbone workers--coordinators for the evening who match up students and defendants and do all of the grunt work faithfully, we schedule two of them per evening so there is some backup, and they, too, know of other coordinators on the list (eight to two per year) they can call on for help.  We have always been fortunate in having certain "junkies" who like the program so much they are there all the time, even in the spring.  Encourage people who like it to come back, even unscheduled, as this gives you a pool of junkies you can use in the spring.

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Karlene Peart
Layton Youth court
P.O. Box 2103
Layton, UT  84040
801-444-1746
JKPeart@aol.com 

We also have problems having youth come at the end of the year, what we do to help this is start the training for the new members of the court in March and the training is completed by June.  They are trained to take over as soon as the seniors are gone.  We call the others the night before court and remind them to come and most of them do.

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

Send summons in the mail a week before the court date, always scheduling 5-7 more jurors than we need because usually half do not show or can't attend for whatever reason. Also we call the school and leave a message to remind the student about teen court that afternoon, if we get too many that will call and cancel, we always have our faithfuls who will come in at the last minute.

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

In response to the volunteer retention at this time of year, we schedule our awards banquet as well as going into the schools and doing teen court presentations during this time.  We also award our senior scholarships in April which kind of cements these seniors to keep coming as they feel rather obligated after receiving a financial scholarship.  The awards banquet rewards the teens for their commitment which again seems to help with making them feel obligated so to speak.

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