NCJ Number
129850
Journal
Human Services in the Rural Environment Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Dated: (1987) Pages: 9-15
Date Published
1987
Length
7 pages
Annotation
The School-Juvenile Court Liaison Project was created in Georgia as an outgrowth of a 1983 conference emphasizing the importance of cooperation between local schools and juvenile courts in preventing juvenile delinquency. The program is based on locality development, in which rural communities are helped to enhance their capacity to deal with a wide range of community issues.
Abstract
To achieve these goals, teams of school social workers and juvenile court workers were formed in five areas to assess local needs; set goals; and plan, implement, and evaluate programs. Building the teams demonstrated the three stages of task-oriented group development central to the concept of locality development: orientation, evaluation, and control. The project was evaluated in terms of the extent to which individual teams met their goals and the overall increase in school-court cooperation. Although the results of the five teams were mixed, the project will be replicated, as the teams who were supported by the school and court systems and the project staff did develop some capacity to work together for the benefit of troubled youth. 1 table and 13 references (Author abstract modified)