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West orange youth services project
WEST ORANGE
YOUTH
SERVICES
PROJECT
In a northern New Jersey municipality, local policemen are working hand in hand with university authorities on human relations in a program designed to help youngsters in trouble and to help the police help the youngsters stay out of trouble. They call the program MAYBE (Many Aiding Youth By Experience) but there seem to be few ‘maybes’ voiced over the effectiveness of the project in promoting understanding between the police and youngsters enrolled in the program and their families. The municipality is West Orange, a suburb of Newark in populous Essex County, The project is being run by the West Orange Youth Service Bureau in conjunction with the West Orange Police Department and Seton Hall University, with the aidof a $95,649 action grant provided through the State Planning Agency. The program was devised initially to give all West Orange police officers training designed to enable them to relate better with youngsters and to understand their needs and problems. The Seton Hall educators providing the training have in turn been getting the policemen’s point of view by spending hours riding in patrol cars and monitoring calls and reports
at police
headquarters.
The theory, explains one of the professors, is that police can give emotional psychological first aid ori the beat just as they give physical first aid; that training behavioral problems.
sciences
enables
the policemen
to deal more effectively
with people
or in
and their
The second phase of the program is the counseling service bureau which is staffed by twelve counselors from Seton Hall plus four group therapists, a psychiatrist and a psychologist. Between last October and mid-May, the service agency had treated nearly 200 boys and girls between the ages of thirtee n and twenty. The program, aimed at preventive action, is open without charge to any resident of West Orange but most of the youngsters come in through referrals from the police. Youths who have appeared in Juvenile Court can have their records cleared if they agree to counseling and are judged to be making progress in the program. The actual counseling is confidential and winds up with the youngster’s family joining him in counseling sessions. People close to the program say the municipality’s
youngsters
are beginning
to see
policemen in a new light-that they realize police aren’t out just to arrest them but are willing to help them out. Representatives from another state have come into West Orange and plan
to use the program
as a model
New Jersey State Law Enforcement 447 Bellevue Avenue Trenton, New Jersey 08618
for one of their own.
Planning
Agency
Al Drake Coordinator of Public Information
YOUTH
SERVICES
PROJECT
In a northern New Jersey municipality, local policemen are working hand in hand with university authorities on human relations in a program designed to help youngsters in trouble and to help the police help the youngsters stay out of trouble. They call the program MAYBE (Many Aiding Youth By Experience) but there seem to be few ‘maybes’ voiced over the effectiveness of the project in promoting understanding between the police and youngsters enrolled in the program and their families. The municipality is West Orange, a suburb of Newark in populous Essex County, The project is being run by the West Orange Youth Service Bureau in conjunction with the West Orange Police Department and Seton Hall University, with the aidof a $95,649 action grant provided through the State Planning Agency. The program was devised initially to give all West Orange police officers training designed to enable them to relate better with youngsters and to understand their needs and problems. The Seton Hall educators providing the training have in turn been getting the policemen’s point of view by spending hours riding in patrol cars and monitoring calls and reports
at police
headquarters.
The theory, explains one of the professors, is that police can give emotional psychological first aid ori the beat just as they give physical first aid; that training behavioral problems.
sciences
enables
the policemen
to deal more effectively
with people
or in
and their
The second phase of the program is the counseling service bureau which is staffed by twelve counselors from Seton Hall plus four group therapists, a psychiatrist and a psychologist. Between last October and mid-May, the service agency had treated nearly 200 boys and girls between the ages of thirtee n and twenty. The program, aimed at preventive action, is open without charge to any resident of West Orange but most of the youngsters come in through referrals from the police. Youths who have appeared in Juvenile Court can have their records cleared if they agree to counseling and are judged to be making progress in the program. The actual counseling is confidential and winds up with the youngster’s family joining him in counseling sessions. People close to the program say the municipality’s
youngsters
are beginning
to see
policemen in a new light-that they realize police aren’t out just to arrest them but are willing to help them out. Representatives from another state have come into West Orange and plan
to use the program
as a model
New Jersey State Law Enforcement 447 Bellevue Avenue Trenton, New Jersey 08618
for one of their own.
Planning
Agency
Al Drake Coordinator of Public Information