A group of literacy volunteers has received a three-year grant to provide one-on-one tutoring and mentoring services to youths at DuPage County’s Juvenile Detention Center.
Representatives from the Illinois chapter of the Literacy Volunteers of America say they hope to recruit about 30 retirees to tutor troubled teenagers while they are in the detention center and at community locations after they have been released.
The project, to be called Jump Start II, is the first of its kind at a county-run juvenile detention center, said Patricia McGrath, superintendent of DuPage’s center during a meeting Monday of the County Board Judicial Committee.
“We hope to begin to turn some of the kids toward a direction that is more positive by improving their skills,” McGrath said.
The efforts in DuPage are modeled on a program that the literacy group has operated since 1995 in the state’s juvenile correctional facilities, said Dorothy Miaso, executive director of Literacy Volunteers of America-Illinois. The group sponsors literacy programs for adults and youths throughout the state.
Sandi Murchison, project director for the DuPage program, said the group also wants to offer assistance at the detention center for youths seeking their high school equivalency degree, small group discussions in the evenings and on weekends and a tutoring service for youths released from state juvenile centers back into the community.
There is no cost to the county. Funding is provided through a grant to the group from the Retirement Research Foundation.
William Grady
