Mission Statement

The Howard Circuit Court, Robert J. Kinsey Youth Center is established to provide Short-Term Secure, Non-Secure Emergency Shelter Care, and Long-Term Residential Care for juveniles who are ordered detained or sheltered by the court through wardships.  These services will be provided through Secure/Non-Secure Detention, Emergency Shelter Care, Long-Term Residential Treatment at both the pre and post adjudicatory stages and throughout wardships and post dispositional secure commitments.

• Provide for the juveniles' basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and safety.

• Prevent the abridgement of the juveniles' legal rights during detention, treatment, or shelter at the facility.

• Provide for the physical, emotional, social, and educational screening necessary to appropriately meet the individual care or treatment plan of the juveniles.

• Provide for the practice of religious beliefs and spiritual guidance on an individual need basis.

• To house the juvenile in a safe, humane environment, maintaining the level of security ordered by the court and that which is necessary to prevent escape and assure that youth live free of assault or intimidation.

• Provide a source of coordinated community resources that work toward serving the collective best interest of the youth, the family and the community.  These services will be made available during all stages of residency.

• Provide a program for those in residence that positively promotes the growth and maturation of the individual recognizing individual strengths and limitations.

In this process, the needs of the family system will be assessed and the program will then offer coordinated services to the extended family as the need of the individual youth are addressed.  Incorporated into each treatment and care plan will be issues of accountability, where appropriate, acquisition of appropriate skills, and a course of action for future progress where appropriate.