$500,000 of Government Funding Supports Law School Truancy Court

From Barbara Babb on the Therapeutic Jurisprudence List:

An article from the Daily Record, Maryland’s legal newspaper, reported about $500,000 in federal funding to the University of Baltimore School of Law Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) has received from the FY2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. This new funding enables CFCC to expand our Truancy Court Program (TCP), in operation since 2005 in the Baltimore City Public Schools, to additional schools in Baltimore City and to the four other largest Maryland counties.

The TCP is an early intervention, school-based effort that targets students who have 5 to 20 unexcused absences. Using a therapeutic, non-punitive, holistic approach, CFCC brings together a team in each school consisting of a volunteer judge or master, students from the School of Law, public school administrators and teachers, and volunteer tutors and mentors. Together with CFCC faculty and staff, the team meets with the truant students and their families to identify and address the reasons underlying a child’s truant behavior. The program helps the child and the family learn to manage these problems, so that the child can reconnect with school in positive ways and can avoid school dropout. Data indicate a 50 to 75% increase in school attendance by students participating in the TCP during and immediately following the program. The TCP also includes a Mentoring Program that provides individual mentoring and character-building classes and a Volunteer Initiative open to the entire University of Baltimore community for tutoring, mentoring, and school improvement projects.

CFCC's Web site: http://law.ubalt.edu/cfcc

Article: http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=12029&type=UTTM