Barron County Restorative Justice Programs "Anti-Truancy Initiative"

The OJJDP FY 10 Earmarks Program furthers the Department's mission by providing grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance authorized by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended, to organizations identified in the Conference Report to accompany the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-117), H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 111-366 at 702-714.

The Restorative Justice Truancy Program will provide a continuum of prevention and intervention services in Barron County school districts (K-12) to reduce truancy, thereby keeping students more engaged in their education and less engaged in formal processes that tie up the resources of schools, social services, and justice agencies. Barron County Department of Health and Human Services provides the foundational support for this work; the school districts affected are Rice Lake, Cameron, Barron, Cumberland, Chetek and Turtle Lake. Community Outreach Workers receive early intervention referrals, meet regularly with students and serve as liaisons between parents and schools. This work is strength-based and solution-focused; it is grounded in restorative practices. With an effort towards inter-agency cooperation, Truancy Conferencing complements this work as it addresses root causes, finds incentives, and creates effective accountability agreements with clear consequences.

Successes will be measured by quantifiable outputs and outcomes in five goal areas: increasing caseloads in each district with more people resources, increasing protective-factor resources to students and families year-round, establishing efficient written procedures and coordinated communications between all agencies, decreasing numbers of referrals to courts and social services, and completing/utilizing a data system that gives collective reports based on student success criteria. NCA/NCF