Treatment Services

Choice Program

These services involve the Choice Treatment Specialist in collaboration with Intake/Probation staff to provide services to divert at-risk youth who are already in the court system from further escalation into the court system. The counseling services provide:

  • Crisis Intervention
  • Individual, group, and family counseling
  • Services to strengthen the family
  • Response to runaway, truancy, and incorrigible behaviors
  • Intensive case management services

Courage Program

A community based day treatment program for youth who have committed serious criminal offenses. Throughout the program youth are exposed to a core curriculum of success building skills and behavioral expectations. Youth are expected to participate in individual, group and family counseling, as well as educational and experiential modules. Families are required to participate in family counseling and parent support group. Youth remain on probation and are monitored by a Probation Officer throughout all phases of the program.

  • Provides individual/family/group counseling
  • Must be court ordered and usually habitual offenders
  • The program has four phases – approximately 8 months long
  • Provides a core curriculum of success building skills and behavioral expectations
  • Youth requiring 80% case management and 20% surveillance

Juvenile Justice Institute (JJI)

JJI is a collaborative effort between the Court and Ottawa Area Intermediate School District. This program is for youth who are under the jurisdiction of the court and who are expelled or indefinitely suspended from their home school. The school is a year-around program with a maximum capacity of 25 students. All youth are court ordered into the program and receive educational services from OAISD certified teachers and aides.

  • Court ordered school; year round, nontraditional for ages 13 - 17
  • Maximum enrollment 25
  • Juvenile Community Justice (JCJ) related
  • Expelled or indefinitely suspended youth
  • Staffed by OAISD certified teachers and aides and OAISD supervised

Juvenile Community Justice (JCJ)

This initiative was born out of a need to better serve those high-risk youth being placed in costly state programs. JCJ is a program that employs a network of local agencies that provide services for count involved youth. It provides community-based treatment and surveillance for those youth who are at-risk for residential placement and those returning early to their communities after release from placement.

  • Youth at-risk for residential placement; court ordered for ages 13-17
  • Contracted Lead Agency provides treatment and services
  • Community-based treatment
  • Juvenile Justice Institute, as appropriate
  • Restorative approach