Service Strategies and Programs to Help Incarcerated Youth: A Training Program for Volunteers

For more than thirty years, AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) members have been serving disadvantaged communities. The program is dedicated to increasing the capability of people to improve the conditions of their lives. Foster Grandparents are part of the National Senior Service Corps, a network of more than a half-million seniors who are making a difference as volunteers. Since 1965 the Foster Grandparents Program has tapped the experience, skills, talents, interests and creativity of seniors age 55 and older. They serve 20 hours a week in: schools, hospitals, day care centers, homes for abused and abandoned children, Head Start, drug treatment centers and correctional institutions. In 1998 a group of AmeriCorps*VISTA members joined the Foster Grandparents that were serving at five juvenile institutions in Ponce and Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. As a National Service Fellow with the Corporation for National Service, I have assessed the present programs and practices of the Juvenile Programs and Foster Grandparent involved in the initiative. The purpose of this training is to provide potential volunteers with an overview of the system plus new areas of involvement where they may have an impact