{"id":243,"date":"2012-11-06T21:25:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubaltlawcfcc.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/06\/volunteering-with-the-truancy-court-program"},"modified":"2020-10-26T20:58:07","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T20:58:07","slug":"volunteering-with-the-truancy-court-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/2012\/11\/06\/volunteering-with-the-truancy-court-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteering with the Truancy Court Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Wong, CFCC Student Fellow 2012-2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year, I volunteered as a tutor with\u00a0CFCC\u2019s\u00a0Truancy Court Program (TCP) and it was a wonderful experience. \u00a0I believe this is a great opportunity for all law students. \u00a0Many of us come to law school with some vision to serve the public interest.\u00a0 Because law students are limited in their amount of free time, the one-hour weekly time commitment with TCP is manageable and worthwhile. \u00a0In addition to tutoring students, law students can interact with school administrators, staff members from the Center of Families, Children, and the Courts (CFCC), and local judges and attorneys, who are all involved in the TCP with the goal to improve students’ attendance and behavior.<\/p>\n

During my first month of law school, I received an e-mail from CFCC, which was looking for volunteers to assist with the Truancy Court Program. \u00a0I attended\u00a0a one-hour training at the\u00a0Family Justice Building,\u00a0a few blocks away from the University of Baltimore School of Law\u2019s main building.\u00a0 A\u00a0few weeks later, I began attending the weekly morning sessions at New Era Academy in Baltimore. \u00a0I chose New Era because I did not have classes on Tuesday mornings, but I knew there was flexibility because other programs met on other days of the week. \u00a0The weekly sessions took place in the school cafeteria and on some occasions, I sat with the judge when he met with individual students. \u00a0It was interesting to learn the underlying reasons why students\u00a0were absent from their classes. \u00a0There were several reasons, including not being able to wake up because the student didn’t own a clock, not having the proper uniform, and simply not wanting to attend school. \u00a0Regardless of the reasons,\u00a0however,\u00a0everyone around the table provided assistance and incentives to the students so they could\u00a0improve their attendance and classroom behavior. \u00a0There was always something positive that the judge would recognize\u00a0for each student,\u00a0and it was clearly important for the student to understand that. \u00a0This shouldn’t be a surprise, but by the end of 10-week program, many of the students graduated\u00a0from TCP. \u00a0I think an important part\u00a0of the success of the Truancy Court Program is the individualized attention given to each student,\u00a0providing them with direction during the course of the program. \u00a0Law students can help in this process by volunteering to tutor these students.<\/p>\n

There are also other ways for law students to be involved with the Truancy Court Program. \u00a0A UB law student can enroll in an experiential learning course called\u00a0the\u00a0CFCC Student Fellows\u00a0Program\u00a0and\u00a0can participate as a law clerk in the Truancy Court Program at various local schools\u00a0to\u00a0assist the TCP\u00a0\u00a0judge in the weekly sessions. \u00a0Student Fellows learn the concepts of therapeutic jurisprudence and preventive law and how they are incorporated into the Truancy Court Program. The 3-credit\u00a0course is offered in the fall semester and offers opportunities to visit various courts, such as\u00a0the\u00a0Family Division of the Circuit Court\u00a0for\u00a0Baltimore City, drug treatment court, and the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center.<\/p>\n

I encourage all law students to take a look into volunteering with the Truancy Court Program\u00a0and\/or enrolling in the CFCC Student Fellows Program\u00a0because the students\u00a0and families\u00a0in the community need our help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Wong, CFCC Student Fellow 2012-2013 Last year, I volunteered as a tutor with\u00a0CFCC\u2019s\u00a0Truancy Court Program (TCP) and it was a wonderful experience. \u00a0I believe this is a great opportunity for all law students. \u00a0Many of us come to law school with some vision to serve the public interest.\u00a0 Because law students are limited…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2988,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2988"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1121,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/1121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}