County agency receives grant to benefit troubled children

Published 10:17 pm Thursday, December 29, 2005

Troubled teens and their parents will now be able to attend a workshop to help them deal with their problems free of charge.

In a statement, Governor Bob Riley announced that he allocated $44,111 in funds from the U.S. Department of Justice directly to Cullman County. That money will be used by the Child Advocacy Center to provide Parent Project, a 10-week course intended to help parents prevent their children from making “negative choices.”

The course normally carries a fee of $200, but will now be open to anyone that wants to attend for a cost of just $50.

“If they are not able to afford that, the grant will allow qualifying families to attend for free,” said Gail Swafford, a therapist with the CAC.

According to Swafford, the course started several years ago in California and was created by a law enforcement officer, a psychologist, parents and a teacher.

“What they found after the program was initiated was that juvenile crime decreased by one-third and school attendance and performance increased significantly,” said Swafford.

While no statistics are currently available for how effective Cullman’s program has been, Swafford said they plan to use some of the grant money to track the success rate and that she expects more people to attend with the discounted rates.

She also said that the money will allow them to increase the number of programs from three a year to five a year.

“It’s really developed for people that have strong-willed or out-of-control children,” said Swafford. “Some of the attendants are actually court ordered.”

The course is held once a week, in three hour sessions that include a meal.

The next session is scheduled to kick off on Jan. 19 at Seventh Street Baptist Church on Alabama Highway 157.

According to Swafford, the session is divided into two groups—one for parents and one for children.

Each receives a workbook and learns skills that will help parents and children make better decisions in the future.

“To my knowledge, we haven’t had any of our kids back in the court system after taking the course,” said Swafford. “Of course it’s only been a year since we started offering it though.”

For younger children, Swafford said they also offer Loving Solutions, which is designed for children ages 5 to 11.

For more information about Loving Solutions or to register for Parent Project call the Cullman Child Advocacy Center at 739-2243.

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