Lawrenceville, NJ - The Lawrence Township Stationhouse Adjustment Program (SHAP) was created in an effort to provide an alternative for youth facing a juvenile police record, family court or potential incarceration; created four years ago by PEI Kids, the Lawrence Police Department and Neighborhood Center.
Stationhouse Adjustment Program is funded by the State of New Jersey’s Governor’s Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Committee, the goal of the program is to help youth that have committed a minor crime for the first time stay out of the Juvenile court system.
“The program is designed to allow police departments to refer first time crimes such as shoplifting, it’s a way for us to try and get through to the youths with out them having to go through the long expensive process of a court system.” Said Charlotte Coley, SHAP coordinator, at PEI Kids.
Referrals for SHAP are made by the local police department and are made to PEI Kids. Then the youth and parents are involved in an interview before being enrolled in the program. The program is 6 weeks long and the kids must sign an agreement and must complete the program in order to stay out of court.
There are no more then 10 youths in a class and each class has two facilitators. During the 6 week program a facilitator leads different discussions, which includes these topics: right and wrong, life skills, loyalty, and communication and listening skills. A new module for this year is researching a role model that practices healthy risk taking, this is designed so that the youth can see ways that risk taking can be positive.
“The idea is to really get the kids to talk about what they have done and focus on the way they think and impulse control,” said Charlotte Coley, SHAP coordinator, at PEI Kids. “Our goal for this year is to have 100 students accepted and have a 100% completion rate.”
Each week there is a community service component, for 30 minutes every week they work on a community service project. This winter the project was making cards for injured soldiers.
“The community service aspect is to give them a sense of community and connect with something bigger then themselves,” said Charlotte Coley, SHAP coordinator, at PEI Kids. “Students from the Bonner Scholars from The College of New Jersey teamed up with SHAP, and serve as mentors for the youths and it sets a positive example of giving up their time to the community.”
Last year, 89 young adults successfully completed the SHAP program, out of 90 students, a 99% completion rate.
For more information on Stationhouse Adjustment Program please contact Charlotte Coley, SHAP coordinator, at PEI Kids, at 609-695-3739.
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About PEI Kids
PEI Kids was founded as a private, non-profit organization in 1985 to meet the growing need for education, intervention and training programs relating to children’s personal safety and child sexual abuse. Today, PEI Kids offers the most comprehensive array of children’s services in Mercer County. Through education about abuse, bullying prevention programs, crisis intervention, supervised visitation, outreach to juvenile offenders, and other services, we offer children and their families important services to make them safe and well.
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