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Expanding program variety and contract considerations for juvenile detention
4:31:05
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Council Member Stevens advocates for expanding the variety of programs offered in juvenile detention facilities and suggests new approaches to contracting with service providers.
- Recommends considering smaller contracts to involve more providers and offer a wider range of programs
- Suggests implementing rotating contracts to prevent program repetition for long-term detainees
- Emphasizes the goal of equipping youth with diverse skills to prevent recidivism
- Highlights the importance of creating opportunities that match the potential and creativity of detained youth
- Expresses concern about the 'brilliance that's locked behind a wall' and the need to nurture young people's talents
Althea V. Stevens
4:31:05
Absolutely.
4:31:06
I mean, you know, we were talking to one of these young people who's clearly a botanist and a yoga instructor and all the things, but you know especially and I know it gets hard when with the provider because they don't necessarily have the manpower to be able to create such a wide variety, but we do need to think about maybe we have smaller contracts so we can have more people, more providers there so we can have offer more because let's say if you're there for a year, don't want to keep taking the same thing over and over again.
4:31:36
So I do think that we do need to be a little bit creative about this and so like if these two organizations can't offer a wide variety, which they probably shouldn't, I just want to say because we don't want them to overextend themselves, we should be thinking about contracts either on like rotate based or things like that because we do want to be able to offer the kids as many options as possible so that when they are released they do not come back because that needs to always be the goal.
4:32:01
Like when they leave they should have a set of skills that they can rely on to translate back into society and so definitely would love to continue to have conversations around that and and continue develop that out because as always I'm always overly impressed by our young people and under impressed by us as adults.
4:32:21
So speaking to those young people yesterday, just seeing the brilliance that's locked behind a wall is heartbreaking because those are literally brilliant young men.
4:32:32
We didn't get to meet the girls, but don't worry we're coming back, but they were a bunch of brilliant young men who had some of the most creative minds and was just excited about showing us the work that they were doing, the puzzles that they were creating and that to me is what the young people are and we need to make sure we're creating those opportunities and setting them up for success.
4:32:50
So thank you for having us yesterday but that's something that I want talk We agree.