Published: March 14, 2008 03:12 pm         

Youngsters get attention of commissioners

By Leslie Gibson

Herald-Banner Staff



To help troubled youngsters heal through outdoor activities; to help increase awareness of and thus prevent child abuse in the county; and to update the policy concerning “unattended” children in the library, Rockwall County commissioners voted unanimously to fulfill routine requests of various department heads.

Angie Scalf, of juvenile probation, in order to continue with grants the department has received, needed resolutions from the court which say that “we will spend the money the say we will,” she said.

She needed the court’s OK to apply for a grant she is writing, for $30,000 to $35,000 in equipment to make possible experiential education, a program which requires full staff commitment.

“All kids need counseling and 50 percent of them need help expressing themselves,” she said. “We put them in intense physical activity such as hiking and biking,” she said. “They can’t do it, and then we discuss it and set goals,” she said. Speaking with animation of a program she said was very successful in Kaufman County. “It was awesome.” The outside challenges cause the kids to open up, she said.

“They come in our office mad; they can’t verbally express it. They work really, really hard all day and it just comes out,” she concluded.

“You have to have a dedicated staff — you give up a lot of time outside of 8 to 5,” she said. “You spend weekends and evenings camping in a tent with juvenile probationers; is that something you want to do?” she said she asked her staff. “They are all committed.”

She is in the second year of a grant which teaches juveniles to become master gardeners. The grant is for $24,180. The money pays for an officer with a cell phone, and for equipment to install a children’s garden, xeriscape and water garden. The next year of the grant will fund maintenance of the garden.

In a second resolution, a $51,742 grant pays for a full-time masters level social worker, to “intensely” work with six at-risk youngsters and their families. The youngsters are at-risk of being sent to residential placement. It costs $30,000 a year to have a child placed, Scalf told the commissioners. The social worker works three to four days a week in the home, she said.

After all of her presentations, she complimented the work of county treasurer Bill Sinclair and court administrator Felicia Morris. “Without their help, we could not meet these deadlines,” she said of the grant requirements.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, Lucille Bell, executive director of CASA in Rockwall County, told the commissioners, in the public forum of the meeting. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates. She received favorable comments on her request to put a display in the county justice center on Ridge Road. It will contain shoes, each pair representing one of the county’s 50 children in the care of Child Protective Services, ranging in age from 14 months to 18 years.

The 14-month old has been there since birth, she said, because of the drug addiction of the mother. “We need to bring awareness to the fact that there is child abuse in Rockwall County,” she said.