by Devon Pettengill
for Altadenablog/Altadena Online
Photo: Deputy Brad Reinford, who will help start the Altadena VIDA program, addresses attendees at the Altadena Community Center Thursday night.
Members of the LA County Sheriff's Department met with community leaders on Aug. 19 at the Altadena Community Center to introduce the Vital Intervention Directional Alternatives (VIDA) program, soon to be implemented in Altadena. The goal of the program is to intervene in the lives of youth who are at risk of becoming involved with criminal behavior.
Deputies from the VIDA explained that the 16-week course engages at-risk children ages 11 to 17 and their parents for ten hours each week in everything from group counseling to physical training drills designed to redirect anti-social behavior into socially acceptable behavior. The classes take place two times each year during the school semester, and deputies hope to have a first class in Altadena in Feb., 2011.The VIDA course consists of a day-long class on Saturdays and one session during the week. Saturday courses often involve military style drills and physical training compliant with the President's Fitness Challenge. Students are also taken on "reality check" field trips to facilities such as the LA County Jail, California Youth Authority, California State Prison, the neonatal unit of a local hospital, and the Museum of Tolerance. Community service and educational and career tutoring are also part of the VIDA program.
Participants in VIDA can be referred by any number of people, including the court, probation officers, patrol deputies, detective bureaus, teachers, school administrators, or their own parents. The program does not accept those who have already been involved in violent crimes. The focus is on youth who are considered at medium to high risk of engaging in criminal behavior, with the goal of preventing them from entering into the system in the first place. Youth who have already had run ins with the law are also accepted, and first-time offenders may have the opportunity to avoid earning a criminal record on the condition of graduation from VIDA.
One of the keys to the program and its success is the involvement of students' parents or legal guardians. Enrollment in the program includes welfare inspections of the student's home and family counseling helps address parent-child communication and learned behaviors. Deputy sheriffs also attribute some of the programs success to the fact that the intervention takes place without having to remove a child form his or her familiar environment.
The program is run by deputies with help from volunteers from community-based organizations. Deputies in the VIDA program have received additional training as juvenile intervention instructors and child abuse investigators. The program tries to maintain a ratio of 15 students for every three deputies. This small ratio allows deputies to engage with students on an individual level. Despite a $75 enrollment fee to cover uniforms, drug testing fees, and educational tours, the VIDA program does not operate under a budget.
The success of the VIDA program among those who graduate is very high, with about 8 in 10 going on to become productive citizens, deputies said. This success rate is even more remarkable given that something as simple as a citation for possession of a lighter is considered recidivism by the VIDA program. Deputies in the VIDA program are devoted to the idea that at-risk children and their families matter, and a little change can go a long way.
More information about the VIDA program will be available soon at www.vida.la.
