What starts out as a bagel often ends up as a pretzel. True for bagels but not for people, especially our youth. Starting out as a troubled youth doesn’t mean that individual has to end up a troubled adult. We cannot dismiss these youths as hopeless, searching for more ways to incarcerate in lieu of searching for successful interventions.
Safe Haven is a one man “operation” which fights for safe streets and safe folks. Since I have been aware of this program, it has provided a myriad of services engulfed by the need for food, shelter and clothing: Abraham Maslow termed this basic needs.
As is often the case, internal challenges are the major obstacles that face Safe Haven as it takes on needs external to working within the community. If there are socio-political obstacles to programs such as Safe Haven, the strategy is to find resources in other areas.
I am seeking out the University of Pennsylvania, an organization that I have collaborated with for 15 years at Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships. Netter has a storied history and may be willing and able to help the Safe Haven program gain economic stability to provide counseling services that are needed to be delivered to challenged children and families.
The stops and starts of Safe Haven
I have a personal background in the evolution and development of Safe Haven, having been involved in these projections, serving often in leadership roles. I was hired as the founding director of the Human Services program in the University of Tennessee’s College of Liberal Arts. This academic department served as the home and safe place for students choosing to work in human services for 30 years.
Along with this role, I founded and directed a group home for juvenile delinquents, an early adventure in community-based treatment.
Why was I so motivated to find solutions for these youth? It started with a young boy who hung himself while in juvenile detention for a truancy offense. This is a status offense in juvenile law.
So, the group home became an integral part of the neighborhood. The young folks living in the home attended public schools, participated in counseling, and went into the larger community on a weekly basis when group goals were met. This helped their development of primary relationships which many had never done.
The Brushy Mountain State Prison is in a rural area about 50 miles from Knoxville. The warden provided a program called Straight Talk, which I have mentioned before, for the group home. Straight Talk allowed a group of inmates to speak with the kids about responsible behaviors and what life in prison was like.
The success rate with our juveniles in the group home program over a 10-year period: 80%.
Juveniles and adults are human service fields that will always need attention, understanding and action to deal with all its sub systems, trials, incarceration and reentry to society.
Bob Kronick is professor emeritus University of Tennessee. Bob welcomes your comments or questions to rkronick@utk.edu.
