United Way of Knox County has welcomed in a long running program to run in-house.Knox County Teen Court was struggling with increased overhead costs, according to United Way Executive Director Laun Dunn.
Teen court is a program where youth ages 13-18 charged with minor offenses can be sentenced by a jury of same-aged peers, acting as an alternative to the traditional court system.
Dunn says previously the program was restricted by their by-laws on the kinds of cases they could take on and when the program was started the focus was mostly on retail theft.
Paula Johnson will continue to serve as program director, in fact this new arrangement will free her up to do more hands on work related to Teen Court’s mission, of restorative justice.
Dunn says that Johnson does a great job of talking to kids about their future, and giving them ideas of what they could do with their life.
“Sometimes our youth are so bogged down by their current issues, things like bullying or peer pressure or different things that seem so immediate to them that they don’t necessarily consider that future self; what are they going to look like in ten years, where do they want to be,” Dunn says.
Dunn says she hopes that teen court can now work more closely with schools and become an educational tool.
