National Mentoring Month, Plus a Positive Youth Development Policy Platform

National Mentoring Month in Reclaiming Futures Hocking County

Last Thursday was Thank Your Mentor Day, and the Reclaiming Futures site in Hocking County, OH was featured in the Logan Daily News for promoting it. Their goal is to promote mentoring for youth involved with juvenile court who have alcohol and drug issues.
Like many other juvneile courts, Hocking County has found a lack of local mentors and mentoring programs serving court-involved youth. So they've allocated $10,000 in grant money to promote one-on-one mentoring with teens in the justice system. The grant is from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
But if you missed Thank Your Mentor Day -- I'm afraid I did -- it's not too late. The whole month of January is National Mentoring Month. Check out the website for ideas and information. 

 
Positive Youth Development  - a Policy Platform

In somewhat the same vein: the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) published its latest policy platform, "Approaching Juvenile Justice with a Focus on Positive Youth Development." The platform provides background on positive youth development (PYD) and strengths-based programming as well as recommendations for the use of PYD in juvenile justice systems. The document also provides several resources to learn more about PYD and strengths-based programming in the area of juvenile justice.   
UPDATE: The Coalition for Juvenile Justice has also published reports on PYD. See this post for links to documents about applying PYD in the courts.
 
(Photo by ewsisphotos.)