Chief probation officer to talk about juvenile system

Stanislaus County Chief Probation Officer Jill Silva will speak at the City Ministry Network’s monthly Catalyst meeting Thursday at 1301 12th Street on the topic “Restoring Incarcerated Youth.”

She’ll provide an overview of services being provided to youths in the county’s criminal justice system, including court services, juvenile detention and commitment facilities, field services and out-of-home placement.

“A lot of people don’t know what Probation does … the role we play in the criminal justice system,” she said Tuesday morning. “Working with a state grant, we’ve been doing work on an initiative to address racial and ethnic disparities.”

The department also has been improving services for the juvenile female population, she said.

In 2013, the county opened a $22.7 million, 60-bed Juvenile Commitment Center on Blue Gum Avenue, intended to rehabilitate youth offenders rather than just locking them up. The locked, 45,000-square-foot facility for court-sentenced juveniles has a culinary training kitchen, classrooms for teaching skills to young inmates, day rooms, a gymnasium and a visitation center.

Silva said she’ll share pictures from inside the facility, “and we have a couple of youth who were willing to be videotaped, to put a face to our success stories.”

While California counties continue to struggle with adult inmate realignment – the effort begun in 2011 to divert low-level offenders from crowded state prisons to local jails – her department began dealing with juvenile realignment “many years ago,” Silva said.

“It really is looking better,” she said. “I’ll share a snapshot to show the juvenile population throughout the state is at an all-time low. That could help people understand that adult realignment could help if it’s adequately funded.”

Silva said she believes Stanislaus has among the best juvenile mental health services in the state – available to youths most days of the week, which many counties can’t say.

She’ll also talk about training, such as the culinary program offered at the commitment center. “We have a beautiful, state-of-the-art kitchen where youth are getting job skills,” Silva said. “We test them and they get a certificate that they can take and show to any employer where they prepare food. We will have our grand opening of our new Day Reporting Center soon, and our youth will prepare the food for that.”

The Catalyst meeting, open to anyone, is from 7 to 8:15 a.m. Thursday at 12th St. Coffee will be served at 6:45 a.m.

To learn more, visit cityministrynetwork.org/catalyst.

This story was originally published August 4, 2015 at 10:23 AM with the headline "Chief probation officer to talk about juvenile system."