Congressman's support brings more instructors to incarcerated youth

Because of the support of U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Chumuckla, 20 youth care employees from four area facilities have become certified life-skills instructors for the 300 or so incarcerated youth in their care.

"We could not succeed without the support of Congressman Miller," said Edmund F. Benson, co-founder of ARISE, the nonprofit organization that created the curricula. "Our training programs and printed materials, including books and posters, coupled with a strong voice in Washington, D.C., are a winning combination when it comes to changing directions of crime-centered youth."

Since 1986, ARISE has been training juvenile justice employees how to teach life-management skills to incarcerated youth. This includes how to manage anger, resolve conflict, develop refusal skills and find and keep a job.

ARISE has developed interactive life-skills curricula aimed at high-risk teens. The lessons are aimed to appeal to school dropouts, truants and others who have disrupted and dozed through classes for years. Through its intervention, re-entry and staff training programs, ARISE helps prepare offenders for their eventual reintegration into the community.

"Jeff Miller understands that when incarcerated youth are taught vital life skills by certified ARISE instructors before they are returned to their communities, we are, in effect, preventing future criminal activities," Benson added.

In District 1, which Miller serves, the Milton Girls Juvenile Facility, Adolescent Substance Abuse, Gulf Coast Youth Academy and Okaloosa Youth Academy are doing work whose benefit is felt beyond the locked steel doors, Benson said.

"We are all safer when these high-risk youth respond to life's challenges with lessons learned in ARISE groups rather than resort to anger, bullying and criminal behavior," Benson said.

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