Blog: Youth Engagement

[The following post is reprinted with permission from the blog at the Pongo Teen Writing website. The author has recently posted "Poetry as Treatment for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System" and "I Feel Like Weights Have Been Lifted" on this blog. Photo by Olivander. -Ed.]
 
 
At 10 years old, the girl was always home alone while her parents were out doing drugs. I asked if she was scared at the time. No, not for herself. She was worried about her parents. Now, at age 13 and in juvenile detention, the girl has been smoking bud and doing things she isn’t supposed to do. She wants her parents to worry about her for a change. She writes about her parents: “They’re the only people who will be there.” But her poem is titled “When Nobody Was There.”

Pongo’s teen authors will often write about drug and alcohol abuse. They give multiple and contradictory reasons for their involvement. For me, as a poet working with the youth, one of the toughest knots to unravel is the role of family. Substance abuse often seems like a response to emptiness at home and also a confirmation of family connection, however flawed. Teens seem to be filling an emotional void with drugs and alcohol, but also emulating someone they love. And parents sometimes give their children drugs and alcohol, playing an active role in both distancing and dependence. Family is very important.

Here are three teen poems from this year’s Pongo project in juvenile detention, that describe substance abuse in the context of family.

[The author is a young person (pictured below) who benefited from the Reclaiming Futures initiative at our site in Montgomery County, Ohio. The site has recruited over 190 "natural helpers" from the community for teens in the juvenile justice system. - Ed.]
Being in the natural helper program saved my life! I never imagined that when I was placed on probation that I would be linked to people who truly cared about me, let alone my future. 
 
My first probation officer suggested that I participate in the drug court program because I had a problem with smoking weed. I used to get high all of the time, and I started to mess up. You know like, getting in trouble with the police, getting into it with family, and skipping school. Headed for destruction, so to say. 
 
So when I got into the drug court program, they told me about a mentoring program called natural helpers. I had never had a mentor before, and honestly I didn’t know what to expect. Would this be another person to tell me what to do or how to do it? I decided to sign up, thinking, "What do I have to lose? If I don't like it, I'll just blow it off. Easy." Boy was I wrong. 

[The following post is reprinted with permission from the Pongo Teen Writing website. The author published "Poetry as Treatment for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System" on this blog in December. -Ed.]
 
For the past four years, Pongo has surveyed its writers. I want to share the latest results because of what they reveal about distressed teens – their enthusiasm for art and for change, and also their insight into their own lives and their appreciation for those who care. (And I want to share the latest results because I believe in the Pongo method, and I want you to try it! Please read our web site and get in touch.)

Let me explain right away that every teen who works with Pongo in a one-on-one session completes a survey, unless we run out of time. The survey-takers are not a self-selected group. Also, when we choose youth to participate in a one-on-one session we give priority to teens who have never written before and who may be having a difficult time that day. (About one-third of Pongo writers are pretty new to writing, about one-third write a lot.)

As you probably know, the teens currently participating in Pongo are either in juvenile detention or the state psychiatric hospital for children. Many have suffered greatly in their childhoods. They have good reason to be angry, withholding, and mistrustful.

Here are the results of surveys collected last year from 100 different individuals:

[This topic of this column is so critical to reform of the juvenile justice system, we've reprinted it in its entirety from the Criminal Justice blog of Change.org with their kind permission. It originally appeared under the title, "Fixing the Information Mismatch in Juvenile Justice." --Ed.]
In 2007. I met a soft-spoken young man whom we will call “Ivan.” Almost everyday, he wore a large sweatshirt with cats and dogs on it. When I asked him if he liked animals, his face lit up and he told me that his dream was to become a veterinarian. He really loved taking care of animals, he said, and he was especially good with dogs. 
I knew Ivan because he was in the Bronx Family Court on a delinquency proceeding for allegedly throwing water on his teacher’s laptop at school. Ivan said it was an accident, although his teacher didn’t think so.
 
While awaiting a finding in his case, Ivan was successfully attending Saturday community service events, he was going to his counseling appointments, and he was present at school when his probation officer checked on him. Unfortunately, Ivan’s mom didn’t quite have her act together, so Ivan would find himself breaking up fights between her and her boyfriend, or taking care of her when she was too high to do it herself. Eventually, the court recognized that Ivan’s mom was not in a position to mother him as required by law. Without other family members or friends to take him in, Ivan was put into a juvenile jail to await the finding in his case.

You may remember "Changing Lives Through Literature" (CLTL), an amazing alternative-sentencing program created by Robert Waxler, an English professor, and Judge Robert Kane, a former Massachusetts Superior Court justice. The progam is based on the idea that studying literature can change lives.

My name's Greg Williams. I'm a young person who's been in long-term recovery since age 17 from alcohol and other drugs. Whenever I tell my story, I always say, “I was whoever I thought my friends wanted me to be.” Throughout my teenage years, my human need for belonging drove me to conform to peer groups around me.

Want to intervene with kids in the justice system, or who are headed there? The Campaign for Youth Justice is hosting a podcast on July 9th featuring two inspiring people who've turned their lives around and are doing just that: Clemmie Greenlee and Rodney Britton.
From the website:

This is part 2 of my interview with Estella Rebeiro, senior juvenile probation officer at the Reclaiming Futures site in Bristol County, MA, about a local implementation of the Changing Lives Through Literature program. (See part 1 of her interview.)
 
Why do you think the program works?
The use of literature aids in the development of self-esteem, mindfulness and emotional well-being.  The topics of discussion promote core values, compassion, hope, respect, integrity and responsibility for self and community.

How do you reduce school violence?
It's easy: you get serious about restorative justice.
At least that's the conclusion I draw from an excellent report, "Improving School Climate: Findings from Schools Implementing Restorative Justice."  The report, from the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), provides intriguing data from six U.S. schools and four Canadian and British schools showing significant drops in school suspensions and "behavioral incidents."  
*Image by spunkinator from Flickr (CC License).