Week 4- January 28th

This week I was able to contact a few more offenders than I normally do whilst checking for updates on cases that we are still tracking. Usually, I have a hard time getting a hold of the youth once the mediation is completed. It is odd that they would be less willing to contact me during the stage of the process that affects them the most, the time when they do or do not complete the terms of the agreement. I know I always come back to the parenting, but it is such a factor when it comes to following through with the agreements. So many of the juveniles who do return calls appropriately and make the effort to get their agreements done on time, have supportive parents who are invested in their futures. I am often awed when I see parents who are MIA and do not care one way or the other about  their children's future, especially given that their children are already in the system. 

When thinking about my career goals, I would hope that as a PO, I would be able to help parents get a better idea of what to expect from their children's lack of cooperation (which translates into their own lack of cooperation). I know as a PO, the job description does not say advice-giver or psychologist, but I do think that many of the parents whose children are in the system are in need of some counseling. It is a shame that as a state and a country, we are not able to provide people with basic counseling to help people cope with the struggles of life in such a economically stressful environment. Those who are strapped for money are generally not worried about things such as counseling, instead, they worry about putting food on the table. This translates into a household that may or may not have the emotional support system appropriate for children.

Week 3- January 21st

This week we were able to close a few more cases. DYS has also sent over more cases for us too! This is very good news. I would ideally love the chance to mediate as many cases with different seasoned mediators as possible before I move away. Also, I really enjoy case developing, which is good considering my interest in juvenile probation as a career. It is important as a new mediator to get a well-rounded experience with many different mediators as mentors. So far, I have mediated with 5 different people, each one with their own extremely unique sense of style and structure during the mediation.

This week we I had to work a bit more from home due to my knee injury. It is hard to get around in general, but I cannot drive on my pain medication. While at the office though, I was able to discuss the potential opportunity to intern with DYS next term. I would love the chance to volunteer at that facility and see first-hand how processing works and all of the rules and regulations. I am so interested in the work that juvenile probation officers do. I think that there is a definite need for more POs to work with restorative approaches rather than retributive. Some are already doing more RJ focused work, such as sending their youth to do our program at CMS. Others do not agree with our methods here.

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.

Week 10- November 26th

This week I am composing the monthly Dept. of Youth Services report. This is an important task that keeps DYS updated on our progress here. It requires me to update each youth's case, separate from any co-offenders. It also points out where the youth's case is in the scheme of mediation and completing the terms of any agreement that might have been made. We have a few cases to close this month, which allows for more cases to come in. This is good news, because as I have already mentioned in previous posts, we are very low on cases.
This week is also a great time for me to convert all of the paper case file information to online format. I will be gone for the remainder of the month and therefore, need to make sure I can access all the information remotely if need be.
Our new case that was initiated last week or so needs some work. I need to contact the victim to make sure that he is aware of the situation and if he would like to participate in this program. The case is about property damage, so we are expecting him to want to mediate, but we shall see. I know if I were 17 and someone had damaged my car, I would do anything to get it paid for. I am very interested to find out how this case proceeds. It is most definitely not the "normal" case we see here.

Week 9- November 19th

This past week, we did get a new case thankfully. We have already received much interest from mediators and observers, and have put all the necessary people on the case. This case is very interesting in the scheme of our normal work in juvenile RJ mediation. Usually we get cases that are about graffiti, trespassing, or criminal mischief. This case is different in that it is about two older youth (17). One has damaged the other's car in the high school parking lot. Normally, we would want to focus on the wrong to the individual and community, but in this case, I have a feeling that it will be more on the wrong to the individual's car. Also, I can imagine that there will be more of a lean toward how to repay the damage. Crimes like damaging property on accident are much different from the usual crimes we see that were done intentionally. I honestly like this new type of case. I hope we get more cases like this. It would promote a more communicative process in youth people, especially in junior high and high school.
I have also been trying to make sure that one of the cases has their community service scheduled properly. I have been getting many angry emails from the parents, worried that they will not be able to get their kids scheduled before the end of the year (as their agreement stated). I have been trying very hard to get a hold of the representative from the organization in question, but it is seemingly impossible. I have told the parents not to worry, and that if the organization does not contact me in a week, the youth will be able to amend the agreement and complete community service through an organization of their choice.

Week 8- November 12th

This week I had to follow up with many of the youth from last week that I gave last chance notices to. I also began a new spreadsheet for our 1-3 month follow up survey. This spreadsheet shows which youth have been given the survey, as well as any support persons, and victims for each case. It can get very hard to organize when some cases have multiple offenders and victims, and therefore multiple support people.
I was able to move a few cases into the "to close" folder this week because they had not answered our last chance notifications. This is unfortunate because we want all of the youth to follow through with their agreements, but at some point it becomes just too long for us to keep waiting on them to pay or complete just a few hours of community service. In the end, it makes more room for new cases to come in. Unfortunately on that end however, we have not received any new cases from the Dept. of Youth Services. Due to budget cuts and also low crime rates, we have not had many new cases in quite some time. Hopefully we will be getting a new one soon, our restorative justice mediators have been waiting a long time for one to come. Since the RJ training this past year, many people have shown great interest in RJ mediation, whether it is mediating, observing, or serving as a community member. I just hope we can give all of these people the opportunity to do so.