State CYFAR Program Spotlight

Project MAGIC

Nevada has one of the highest rates of juvenile incarceration in the US. In the northeastern part of the state, it is the local employment conditions, not poverty, that contribute to this problem. The main industry is gold mining, and workers are attracted to the area by jobs that take them out to remote mines and away from their homes 14 hours each day. Without extended families or support systems, teens are often left unsupervised, and families are stretched.

About 10 years ago, armed with a background as a 4-H agent and spurred by Extension organizational changes, Marilyn Smith instituted MAGIC – Making a Group and Individual Commitment – to intervene with youth before they became repeat offenders. “I used a life skills approach,” Smith said. “Knowing what will work with agencies and organizations, and an extensive review of the situation.”

MAGIC is informed on the one hand, by youth development and 4-H research, and on the other by a knowledge of how to work with the juvenile offender population and high-risk youth. “What’s unique with MAGIC is the partnership between the two pieces,” Smith said.

In northeastern Nevada, teens and their parents may be required to attend Project MAGIC as a condition of probation. The program has been successful at preventing further offenses.

Participants are all first-time juvenile offenders age 12-18. Most are on probation for what are considered “entry-level” incidents that signal bigger issues in their lives. Attendance in the eight-week program is made a condition of probation for both child and parent and is aimed at preventing the youth from following the same patterns and thus re-offending.

The youth must attend 20 ninety-minute sessions over the eight weeks. Classes meet at the county Extension office, which in small Nevada towns are usually walking distance from the local high school. The curriculum consists of hands-on activities about life skills such as decision making and asking for help. For example, studies show that high levels of conflict are present in the homes of many juvenile offenders, so recognizing and managing conflict are among the skills learned. Because use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs is another commonality, teens learn about good decision making and the timeline of responsibility – at what age different behaviors should start. “They see that not everybody drinks or smokes or has unprotected sex. There’s discussion of when that should happen,” Smith said. The lessons are reinforced with homework.

Toward the end of the 20 sessions, the youth identify a leadership activity to pursue. The idea is to use the newly acquired skills to help the community. Projects have included canned food drives, a golf tournament benefiting a local charity, a car wash and, several times, have centered around the local animal shelter. Teens offered to clean out the dog pound and take puppies out to a local shopping center to offer them for adoption. “We really like that part of the program,” Smith said. “They start to put their skills into practice – communications, decision making, teamwork and problem-solving.”

Parents must attend four sessions over the eight-week period, each of them three and a half hours long. Parents meet in groups of 8-10 and follow a curriculum that emphasizes the value of offering help to their teens, resolving conflicts and establishing positive discipline. In addition to attending the three evening meetings, parents complete the SAMHSA Parenting Wisely course on CD-ROM.

Although most are highly motivated to get involved in changing the course of their teen’s life, some come to the first meeting angry, embarrassed and reluctant to participate. But in some ways, Smith said, the curriculum comes second to the discussion that eventually flows, enabling understanding of the common issues these families face. “These parents are discouraged, even devastated that their kids are in trouble. They talk to each other about their problems,” Smith said.

One of the challenges of running the program is scheduling the parents’ sessions around their long working hours. Most make it a high priority, and some employers give time off to attend. When attendance at one or more sessions is impossible, however, leaders have the option of assigning homework – a videotape and corresponding written assignments.

The fact that attendance is a condition of probation for the teens and parents means that attendance is good. Another positive factor is the curriculum – having an executable curriculum has enabled replication across the state, and MAGIC is now being run in half of Nevada’s 16 counties, including one Indian reservation. “We have a curriculum that makes it easy to pick up lesson plans and teach them,” Smith said. It is also flexible enough that the curriculum needn’t be changed much from one county to the next.

Marilyn Smith is occasionally asked, “How can I start working with the judicial system and the probation system in my area?“ Her answer — "Use your contacts."

But executing the program still takes commitment and hard work. Among other things, program leaders must maintain a good working relationship with probation officers, and accommodate parents’ long work schedules. “It is a time-consuming program, and it does take some money – it could easily cost $15,000 per year to reach 40 juvenile offenders and their parents,” Smith explained.

Smith said she is occasionally asked “How do I start working with the judicial system and the probation system in my area?” Her answer is, “Use your contacts”. Having worked in northeastern Nevada for 33 years, Smith says, has helped her to know the community, the local authorities, and to “spot the gaps” in society.

Since the program began its initial pilot phase in 1995, almost 3,000 participants have graduated from the program and not re-entered the justice system. Compared to typical outcomes for probationary juvenile first offenders, and taking into account the cost of the program, Smith and her team estimate that MAGIC has saved the state more than $5 million in incarceration costs. This clear success has earned Project MAGIC several awards, among them the 4-H Program of Distinction.

You may wish to consult: Project Magic, http://www.gbcnv.edu/magic/

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

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