Truancy Intervention Project

Outreach

"Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men - the balance wheel of the social machinery…It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich; it prevents being poor."

- Horace Mann, 1848

Since school failure plagues all communities, TIP began “exporting” the TIP model to other jurisdictions across the state and throughout the country in 1997. Striving to decrease truancy problems in other locales, the TIP staff helps implement Truancy Projects by offering training and resource manuals, on-site start up assistance and ongoing planning and implementation support. With generous funding from the Georgia Bar Foundation, TIP is also able to provide counties within Georgia small "seed grants" to assist in implementation of the model.

To date, the TIP model has been exported to Baldwin, Bibb, Chatham, Cherokee, Cobb, Dekalb, Dougherty, Douglas, Floyd, Gwinnett, Hall, Houston, Jasper, Laurens, Muscogee, Newton, Rockdale, Twiggs and Walker counties and is currently in the preliminary stages of development with Glascock, Haralson, Clayton, Walton and Gordon counties.

In addition to providing services to counties within Georgia, TIP is now working with numerous communities outside the state who have expressed an interest in truancy intervention models and through tele-assistance, TIP works hand in hand with the communities who choose to adapt the TIP model as their local truancy initiative.

Exporting the Truancy Intervention Project Across the State of Georgia

I. Assessing the Need

Every community in the United States is affected by truancy. One of the first steps for combating the problem is to assess both the need and the current available resources.

First, contact the school board and inquire about internal dropout and truancy (excessive unexcused absence) statistics. If this information is not readily available through statistics (or you experience difficulty in obtaining this information), begin to assess the need through informal interviews with key players: school social workers, parents, and students. The school system is one of your best resources.

Next, you should assess the availability of existing programs. Ask school social workers how they typically handle truancy cases. What resources are available in the school and in the community? A valuable resource is the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University. NDPC publishes a quarterly newsletter and maintains an extensive web page located at www.dropoutprevention.org. This web site outlines the NDPC network and will highlight all NDPC members in your community.

II. Types of Adaptations

In determining if TIP will be viable in your community, you should assess what type of program will actually be successful in your community. TIP has two types of program adaptations: A) the court based and B) the school based/early intervention model.

Currently, adaptations of the TIP model must have some attorney involvement, even if minimal, and the support of the local bar association to qualify for a Georgia Bar Foundation seed grant. Additional funding is being sought for early intervention modeled programs.

A. Court Based Model

You must first determine whether the court based program, which utilizes attorney volunteers for legal court representation in truancy and educational neglect cases, is appropriate for your community. Answering the following questions may be able to help you in this process:

1. Does your local school system file truancy and educational neglect petitions with the juvenile court or use some other mechanism for dealing with the issue of chronic absenteeism?
2. If they do file truancy petitions, how many were filed in Juvenile Court last year?
3. How many educational neglect petitions were filed against parents with children too young to be held responsible for their education?
4. Are Guardians ad Litem (GAL) appointed to represent the child’s best interests in the educational neglect cases?
5. Who currently represents children in truancy court proceedings?
6. Is the Judge satisfied with the representation and subsequent follow-up? Would the Judge be interested in volunteers representing children in court hearings?
7. How does the school board rate their truancy issues?

If you are reading this, you probably already know that your community has a truancy problem and needs an effective program to combat the problem. Gathering this preliminary information is still a good first step because it will help you when you appeal to volunteers, judges, probation officers, schools, parents, and, of course, potential funding sources. As you gather this information, remember that the sources of this information: the Court, the schools, social workers, students and parents, are all your future partners in this endeavor.

Once you have determined that a court based truancy program could benefit children in your community, you must decide if it is possible to actually get a program operating. The most important factor is the Juvenile Court Judge's support. Without the Judge's support, this kind of program simply is not possible. Of course, this does not mean that the Judge must immediately embrace the idea, but you must feel that the Judge is open to discussing and investigating the project.

There are many other people who must be receptive to the idea and believe in the project in order for the project to be effective.

These key figures should be interviewed for their insights:

Local Bar Association

Associate Judges/ Probation Officers

School System Social Worker Supervisor/ Social Workers

School Principals

Parent Associations

Local Child Advocates/ Juvenile Public Defenders

Local Law Firms/ Corporations/ Businesses

From these informational interviews, you should learn:

How many members does the local bar association have?
Will the bar association or local attorneys support this program?
Will court appointed attorneys, public defenders and district attorneys support the program?
Do the local law firms in the area support and promote pro bono work?
What is the status of other volunteers programs in the community? Pro bono efforts in the community?
Is there sufficient personnel from the court or local community agencies to support/assist with the coordination of the program? If not, is there a source of local funding?

The answers to these questions and more will help you determine if a court based program utilizing attorney volunteers will work in your community. If sufficient attorney support is not in place, you may want to opt for the school based program.

B. School Based/Early Intervention Model

Some of the same questions should be asked when considering adapting the model with lay volunteers:

1. Does the school system conduct a truancy panel or truancy team meetings that address chronic absenteeism at the school level or have some other mechanism for dealing with the issue of truancy?

2. If the school system does conduct some form of truancy panels before court involvement, do various community agencies (i.e. Family Connection, Communities In Schools, CASA), participate and work together to provide services for the child and family?

3. What is the next step if intervention does not work at that level?

These are just some of the questions that you want to ask to decide what type of program will actually work in your community. Once you have determined that a TIP model can be successful in the community, whether it’s is a court or school based program, the next step is to contact the TIP Georgia office and set up an initial meeting to discuss the adaptation of the TIP model with representatives from the juvenile court, school system, collaborating community agencies and potential volunteers.

If you would like to explore the applicability of the TIP model in your community, please complete the following form and mail or fax to Caren Cloud Barnes, TIP Export Coordinator at the address and fax found on the Contact Us page.

For more information on truancy and additional resources, please visit the various organizations found on the Related Links page.

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