“How can we better engage some of our harder-to-reach young people?” This question was posed to me by BDN editor Erin Rhoda who wrote a shocking yet disturbingly familiar story of a young Maine man named Garrett Brown. He made poor choices as an adolescent, developed an addiction to heroin and ultimately died of an overdose.
We’ve all heard similarly horrific stories before and likely know someone who has traversed a similar path. We’ve felt hopeless in the moment, watching someone self-destruct. Yet in hindsight we see those crucial junctures and warning signs that are as obvious as the back of our hand. Therein lies the real tragedy.
On the spectrum of where youth make seriously poor decisions, I fit in toward the beginning. I coordinate a youth diversion program called Diversion to Assets, or “D2A” for short, a partnership among the Maine Department of Corrections, Spurwink and Kennebec Behavioral Health (and many donors and supporters in the community). Forward-thinking student resource officers, local police, school administrators, judges, assistant district attorneys and juvenile probation officers make the key choice to refer young people, between ages 11 and 17, to me after they’ve committed a summonsable infraction.
In brief, we work together to create an intervention plan — lasting at least 18 hours — of strengths and what I call needs-based engagement (as opposed to what is traditionally considered “community service”). Once the young person has completed the plan, the summons is torn up and shredded as if it never existed.
The easy choice would be to simply push the summons along, punish the young person, possibly expel him or her, and carry on. In the moment this is less work for officers and administrators because they may assume the young person will learn from his or her experience and not repeat the behavior.
However, we’ve discovered that zero-tolerance policies are not very effective. In fact, they are a leading contributor to sustained criminal behavior and are a first step into the obscenely expensive school-to-prison pipeline. It costs the state more than $150,000 per year to incarcerate a juvenile.
Many schools and police have taken a stance against pushing young people into the criminal justice system. Admirably, they are adding even more to their already-overstretched workloads by helping agencies such as D2A treat offenses as a symptom of what are often larger challenges in the youth’s life.
These challenges range widely but include undiagnosed substance use and mental health disorders, untreated and unrecognized traumatic events, family issues (necessitating functional family therapy, multisystemic therapy, or home and community-based treatment).
[MORE: Inside the life and fall of a young Maine man addicted to heroin]
Some youth have been neglected, abused and felt invisible to adults — very much earning the right to mistrust adults. They may feel like there’s no place for them. Many feel particularly disengaged from employment opportunities, school clubs and general recreation. (Constructive use of time is often a major part of our intervention plans.)
For instance, I am developing a plan with a youth who was caught at a local junior high with a vaping device with peers — a classic case of caving to peer pressure and getting caught. The school could have simply suspended her, but instead the administration offered her the choice of a lesser suspension and D2A.
She elected to try the latter, and her intervention plan includes education around tobacco and vaping, plus things she is pining for — opportunities — so she can spend less time at home alone. Her father, who has sole custody, does an admirable job taking care of his daughter, but he works in Augusta, averaging 60 hours per week.
There is significant trauma due to her mother’s actions and a family death in her life, so she’ll likely receive counseling as part of her plan, which she thinks may be helpful. However, much of what we package into our intervention plans can be fun and enlightening — engagements designed to raise what’s called developmental assets. She is passionate about animals, and a local veterinarian has agreed to let her shadow his work on a weekly basis.
She loves children, so we are exploring having her become a counselor-in-training. Perhaps she can help kids while simultaneously becoming empowered as a valued young person. She also wants to learn the violin, so I have been working with a local college professor to find a student to teach her the instrument.
These are the kinds of things we can do with young people when we take the time to have real conversations — valuing them as people who are trying to navigate through the often arduous time of adolescence.
“Fairness is not treating everybody the same. It’s giving people what they need.”
I first heard these two sentences from my supervisor, Pam Mattos, at the Waterville Alternative High School and Teen Parent Program — a miracle of a school. I’ve taken these words with me ever since. I meet people where they are regardless of age, and I always try to honor and not dismiss their realities.
This approach has helped me build relationships with young people. We’ve been able to collaboratively and creatively work together to take strides toward opportunity and betterment.
There is a piece of our culture as hardy Mainers (and Americans) that teaches us to fix things on our own. Sometimes we view vulnerability and asking for help as a sign of weakness and failure, especially among boys and men. I actively work against these undercurrents, and when I am awarded a glimpse of a youth’s world and gain his or her trust, I help the young person and family take steps toward wellness through connection and opportunity.
Recently an adolescent made suicidal statements on a screening tool D2A coordinators use to assess for mental health, substance use and traumatic red flags.
Instead of dismissing the statements as a teenage cry for attention, we dug deeper, created a safety plan together, and reminded her that I, among many others among the safety plan contacts, are in fact here for her if she ever wants to reach out.
Are gestures and practices like these offered by D2A, the Department of Corrections, school administrations, police officers, prosecutors, judges, assistant district attorney and juvenile probation officers truly life-altering? It’s hard to say statistically, as there are so many variables at play, but the data point toward “yes.”
Maine has closed one of its two juvenile detention centers due to a lack of need. Many of Maine’s kids are being diverted from the pipeline to prison. Youth are re-offending less when their first offenses are treated as symptoms of a larger issue, and they’re still being held accountable.
Maine’s kids are getting more of what they need. I hope for our future’s sake — both in terms of healthy development and the economy — that this momentum continues, so there are fewer stories like Garrett’s.
Ryan Kneeland is coordinator of Diversion to Assets (D2A) at Youth Matter!, a partnership with Spurwink, Kennebec Behavioral Health and the Maine Department of Corrections. He is also director of Reach & Rise Therapeutic Mentoring Program at the Alfond Youth Center in Waterville, a partnership with the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention.