[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=58011.73

Changes Coming To Juvenile Center
Alevizos believes they will make the facility more efficient, effective.

Laurie Wink
The News-Dispatch

LA PORTE - The La Porte County Juvenile Services Center is making changes expected to improve efficiency and effectiveness, according to Circuit Court Judge Tom Alevizos.

Alevizos is one of three circuit court judges in Indiana who oversee juvenile centers. With changes in place in July, he said he hopes to turn more responsibility over to the new leadership team.

"The new structure is designed to get information up and down the organization more efficiently," Alevizos said. "It seems to make a lot of sense."

Nancy Gettinger, a native of La Porte, will take over July 7 as center director, replacing Krista MacLennan, who was interim director for more than a year. Erika Stallworth, supervisory counselor at the JSC, will become assistant director starting Monday, June 30.

Gettinger currently is court improvement grants coordinator for the Indiana Supreme Court, Alevizos said, and has statewide experience in family and child services. Alevizos said Nancy's grandfather, Robert Gettinger, was county circuit court judge for 16 years.

Stallworth has a master's of social work degree from the University of Michigan and earned a law degree from Loyola University. Alevizos said he is pleased with both top management choices.

The judge has been working with a consulting team on the restructuring. He is eliminating one assistant director position, allowing him to increase wages of shift workers. Nine unit leaders will be in place to serve as a communication bridge between the directors and shift workers.

The controversial swing shifts that created controversy when they were implemented earlier this year are being eliminated. Instead, shift workers will have a regular work schedule and Alevizos said efforts are being made to give people their shift preferences.

The cost of operating the juvenile center is about $2 million a year, according to Alevizos, and the facility usually is at full capacity.

As a new judge last year, Alevizos set up a Community Action Planning Committee to create a system of graduated sanctions to get juveniles out of the court system as early as possible. He said the approach is based on research about what works.

"Indiana leads the nation in the percentage of kids incarcerated, so that (status quo) hasn't been working," Alevizos said. "Research shows if you apply the wrong sanctions, you make them worse."

The graduated sanctions idea, Alevizos said, holds juvenile offenders accountable and stiffens the penalties as the track record of offenses increases.

"It's easier to teach a puppy how to behave than an adult dog," Alevizos said. "If we change 30 percent of the population, that's 30 percent who will have a better life."

Contact Laurie Wink at lwink@thenewsdispatch.com.

[Roger Kaputnik]

Go, Tommy!