The primary goals
of Community Services are:
- To ensure a balanced
approach of accountability, competency development and community safety
in providing quality services that address the needs of clients, individual
victims and the community;
- To test the effectiveness
of community-based programs on reducing commitments to the state
training school and caseload reduction;
- To establish
multi-agency, cooperative partnerships with local communities; and
- To establish
uniformity in DYS services, case management practices and procedures.
Probation and After Care Services are
provided to juveniles referred to the Youth Courts in Mississippi. Individual,
group and family counseling, intake, pre-court investigation, case management
and referral and placement services are some of the services provided
by Youth Services Counselors.
Adolescent Offender Program
(AOP)
The AOP is a community-based
partnership among the Mississippi Department of Human Services/Division
of Youth Services, mental health agencies, community agencies and
local multi-agency councils. The AOP provides a mechanism within communities
to coordinate services, share resources and reduce the number of young
offenders being placed in state custody.
Program Goals
The program, which focuses on the family, seeks to assist local communities in coordinating and providing services to at-risk families. Its purpose is to decrease criminal activity, improve school attendance and performance, and inspire adolescents to be more positive, goal-oriented individuals.
The program is designed to provide treatment within a therapeutic setting and a safe controlled environment in which counselors teach the adolescents how to develop social skills, interpersonal relationship skills, self-control, and insight.
Services
Each program offers services primarily to non-Medicaid
and non-billed Medicaid clients. These services are also available
to Medicaid-eligible clients. A total of 1,819 clients have recieved
services through eighty-two (82) AOP sites.
Within the existing programs, DYS provides the Responsible Fatherhood
Program Training, Healthy Marriage Program Training, Evidence-Based
Practices, Fast ForWord Reading Program Pilots and Investment in
Excellence for Youth Pilots.
According to social learning theory, the closer the treatment provided
is to the environment in which the youth normally functions, the
more effective treatment will be. AOP is bringing treatment closer
to the environment and the family.
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