Youth Delinquency Prevention Program

The Mentoring Opportunities for Youth Initiative, Category 3 (Mentoring Programs for Youth Involved in the Juvenile Justice System) provides funding to support youth mentoring organizations that have a demonstrated partnership with a juvenile justice agency. The focus is to provide mentoring services to those youth screened as being low risk to public safety by a juvenile justice agency as part of an overall diversion approach with a goal of rehabilitation and accountability. This program is authorized and funded pursuant to Pub. L. No. 116-6, 133 Stat. 13, 115.

The Community Youth Network will implement the Youth Delinquency Prevention Program for 120 youth ages 11–18 from Lake County, IL, who are justice involved, screened as being a low risk to public safety, and referred to the program by two partnering agencies: the Division of Juvenile Probation/Detention Services (19th Judicial Circuit Court), and the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office. The program will improve access to evidence-based mentoring services for justice-involved youth screened as low risk to public safety by a juvenile justice agency in Lake County as part of an overall diversion approach, with the goal of rehabilitation and accountability. The program improves positive life outcomes for at-risk system-involved youth, and reduces negative outcomes through mentoring services in formal partnership with the Lake County Juvenile Courts/Probation and State’s Attorney’s Office. The Youth Delinquency Prevention Program matches a trained program coordinator, therapeutic mentors, and gang outreach coordinator with the target population of justice-involved youth and provides structured weekly one-on-one community-based mentoring at the youth’s home; parent/guardian/family activities/involvement; weekly group mentoring; an annual daylong skill-building retreat; equine-assisted group therapy; and ongoing communication with the Juvenile Courts/Probation and the State’s Attorney’s Office, service documentation, and evaluation. CA/NCF