Page 20 - Delaware Lawyer - Spring 2022

FEATURE | A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO TEEN JUSTICE
As noted above, many delinquent juveniles and their families require additional assistance from the state to address underlying household and mental health-related triggers for de- linquent behavior. Unsurprisingly, this means that many delinquent youth are active with more than one division within DSCYF. The DOJ works col- laboratively with each of the different divisions to address the unique needs of these “dual-status” youth as part of trying to reduce recidivism.
Other governmental and quasi- governmental groups provide invalu- able services, including preventative
services, mediation and communi- ty-based diversion programs that provide alternatives or supplements to the more traditional approach to corrections. Below are only a few examples of the many programs providing these services in Delaware.
In 2019, Delaware Health and Social Services introduced a program called the Group Violence Intervention (GVI) project, which was intended to help high-risk individuals avoid gun violence and gang member- ship in their neighborhoods.7 GVI is an evidence-based program that is available for voluntar y membership.
If you, reader, represent foster youth through the Office of the Child Advocate, and you worry that your foster youth is susceptible to the lure of gang membership, you could encour- age them to participate in this program or other similar programs.8
The Delaware Center for Justice (DCJ) is also an organization that the DOJ will often turn to for assistance with diversion.9 The DCJ offers vic- tim-centered mediation services. This approach can provide for restitution, reconciliation and accountability without adjudication of the charges. In addition, the DCJ provides the School Offender Diversion Program. This program addresses teens whose charges arise from incidents at school and offers a restorative justice pro- gram to help those teens continue pursuing their education with inten- sive, family-based case management.
Treatment Facilities
In 2006, Commissioner Young wrote, “Delaware has no appropri- ate programs or facilities to assist children with mental disabilities who require long-term care special edu- cation, intensive super vision, and training.”10 Sixteen years later, ver y little has changed. No new facilities have been constructed to serve this purpose in the intervening years. Using the mental health court and Competency Court, as well as PBH, DFS and YRS, we identify teens whose potentially dangerous behaviors require profound intervention. Some of those teens are eligible to serve a sentence in the Ferris School or at the Cottages, correctional facilities for juveniles here in Delaware.
However, for those teens whose needs cannot be addressed in their home or a foster home and who are not suitable for incarceration, Delaware has to rely on placement at out-of-state mental health treatment facilities.
18 DELAWARE LAWYER SPRING 2022
PHOTO BY SEAN O’SULLIVAN