Counseling Programs for Juvenile Offenders Receive Outstanding Program Award

Two counselor preparation programs, developed by COE professors Brian Glaser and Georgia Calhoun, that have worked with more than 2,000 local juvenile offenders over the past decade have been recognized by an international group of counseling professionals.

The Juvenile Counseling and Assessment Program (JCAP) and the Gaining Insight into Relationship for Lifelong Success (GIRLS) program recently received the 2005 Outstanding Program Award from the International Association of Addictions and Offender Counseling (IAAOC).

Designed more than decade ago by Glaser and Calhoun, faculty members in the department of counseling and human development services, the programs provide training for future counselors, opportunities for research and mental health services to court-referred juvenile delinquents in Clarke, Oconee and surrounding counties.

The counselors are doctoral or master's-level counselors-in-training whose work is closely supervised by faculty. Research focuses on how counseling benefits juveniles, and developing prevention and intervention programs for the community. The programs are a collaboration between UGA's College of Education, the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice and local courts.

“We created the JCAP as a way to train graduate students, research this particular population and, at the same time, provide a service to a really under-served population,” says Calhoun. “There are not a lot of people standing in line to work with juvenile offenders.”

As coordinator of the nationally accredited master's program in community counseling, Calhoun emphasizes a scientist-practitioner model that includes rigorous practicum requirements and opportunities for research. Graduate students in the program aim to address the psychological, emotional and educational needs of court-referred youth and their families.

The programs have provided the required 700-plus hours of clinical training to more than 80 UGA graduate students and therapeutic services to about 200 juvenile offenders each year.

The juveniles range in age from 9 to 17 and come from varying racial, ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic status. These youth attend one of the public, private or alternative schools in the community. Their offenses ranges from status offenses (i.e. truancy, runaway, underage consumption of alcohol) to felonies (i.e. aggravated child molestation, burglary, aggravated assault).

Findings of research from the JCAP/GIRLS programs were recently presented by Calhoun, Glaser, recent graduate Tres Stefurak, and Athens-Clarke County Juvenile Court Judges James McDonald and Robin Shearer at the International Association for Law and Mental Health at the Sorbonne in Paris. Stefurak is now an assistant professor at Auburn University at Montgomery.

“We are honored to receive this prestigious award,” says Calhoun. “It represents a decade of hard work by the dedicated graduate students we work with, and it's always humbling and gratifying to be recognized by one's peers.”

For more on JCAP:
http://www.coe.uga.edu/chds/jcap/index.html

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

Writer: Angela Hains, 706.542.5889, anicole7@uga.edu
Contacts: Georgia Calhoun, 706.542.4103, gcalhoun@uga.edu
Brian Glaser, 706.542.4117, bglaser@uga.edu