Week 2- January 14th

This week I had knee surgery and was unable to do any work out of the CMS office. I was able to reflect a little bit about the work I have been doing. I realize how much I want to work with kids one on one in a probation setting. I would ideally love to keep mediating RJ cases in addition to the work I would be doing as a probation officer, but I do not think that mediating RJ cases would bring me any income to go toward loans from school. In order to move into the field of juvenile probation, I would need to add more face to face work with at risk youth into my repertoire. I have gained so many skills while interning at CMS. First and foremost, the ability to call families and inquire about their cases, but also the ability to manage cases and track their progress. The skills I have learned in my time at CMS will definitely help me in being able to manage cases at the juvenile probation level.

I am extremely interested in helping youth learn from their experiences and gain a sense of self worth and motivation in life. Mediating cases with youth in RJP has given me an insight into how to better communicate with youth and their families. At times, when mediations get a bit more adversarial about damages and hurts, it has also been helpful for me to learn how to be around people who do not get along. I imagine the world of juvenile probation has to do so much with family dynamics and real life issues, and I look forward to that.

Week 1- January 7th

This week I came back to find several new cases in our program, which is great news! The Department of Youth Services has not been getting many cases that are considered worth putting through diversion, aka trespassing, graffiti, or other forms of criminal mischief. I created files for these new cases, as well as logged all of their information onto our online case manager. Our online case manager is a great tool to use because the mediators for cases are able to log on and check out all of the information on the case. There is a section where I can post to the DYS narrative exactly what has transpired since the beginning of the case. I am very appreciative of the mobility of the program. I am able to log on from anywhere and see all of the contact information for each case and make the necessary calls. In addition, I have saved all of the RJP documents from our hard drive onto our googledocs, so that I can print out any letters etc. that I might need.

I also needed to check in with all of the offenders/victims in our cases. I called all of them and tried to get updates, however most of the youth have not been able to get the community service and/or restitution payments they were supposed to complete. I think this has a lot to do with financial hardship over the holiday break. Time constraints around the holidays are also an issue for some people.

I also found out that one of the agencies in a certain case who were "victims" and supposed to be getting restitution from three offenders, has gone out of business. The $300 that the boys worked to earn was supposed to be sent to this organization, but now they are no longer intact. So I called DYS and requested that the money be sent to the City of Veneta, who was also a victim in this case, to be put toward graffiti clean-up. I think this was a worthwhile decision, and will help toward a better looking community.