Juvenile Review Board's First Year Deemed a Success

With its first year winding down, the town's new Juvenile Review Board is making a difference, its director told the Legislative Council this week.

A year ago the council was debating whether to institute the diversionary program in Hamden similar to the program New Haven has used for several years. Ultimately it decided that there was great enough need here to fund the $60,000-a-year program.

Kyisha Velazquez runs both the Hamden and New Haven programs that work with you who either have been arrested or at risk of being arrested and divert them out of the juvenile court system.

Instead, teams of counselors and mentors work with the children to try to get them back on the right path.

If the child successfully completes the program, he or she avoids prosecution. If not, their case, in the instance of arrests, is redirected to New Haven Juvenile Court.

Currently there are 33 youth taking part in the program, Velazquez said. About 85 percent of them are boys and the rest girls.

There have emerged great differences between the New Haven and Hamden programs, Velazquez said. In Hamden, the children tend to come from two-parent homes, unlike in New Haven, she said. They also often arrive with a variety of mental health issues, she said, including depression and post traumatic stress disorder that can develop after witnessing violence.

Just because they may come from a two-parent home doesn't necessarily mean they are better off than from a single-family home, Velazquez said. They are often dealing with divorce issues, she said, and parental conflict.

And most of them are failing school, she said -- not because they don't have the ability to succeed, but because their "they are allowing these other issues to become obstacles," Velazquez said.

"We give them the tools to express themselves better and handle conflict in a more positive manner," she said.

The program partners with the Board of Education, Hamden Middle School and especially Hamden High School, from where most of the children come. About 15 of those involved in the Judicial Review Board haven't been arrested but have been identified as being at risk of ending up in the judicial system. By getting to them early, they are hoping to keep that from happening, Velazquez said.

"It's a precautionary measure before they get arrested," Velazquez said.

And because most of the youths are already struggling in school, they try to repair that relationship between the students and the school, she said. 

"Most don't have a good relationship with their school," Velazquez said, but by addressing it head-on, progress can be made.

"If a resource is not available, we will create it for them," she said.

Read more about the Juvenile Review Board here: