Archive | Advertise | www.gtla.org October 2011

Teaming Up with the Truancy Intervention Project

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Jacob H. is a smart, shy, introverted 16-year-old boy.  He rarely speaks and rarely looks anyone in the eye.  After Jacob was born at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) immediately placed Jacob in the foster system.  It took two months in neonatal intensive care for Jacob to recover from his exposure to his mother's use of crack cocaine during Jacob's pregnancy.  Neither Jacob nor his biological mother knows the identity of Jacob's biological father.  

Jacob was shuttled from foster home to foster home in his infancy.  Eventually, Jacob was placed in a foster home with six other boys.  Jacob is the youngest of the six young men.  Currently, four of the six are in prison.  The fifth quit going to school at 14 and is hustling in the streets.  In 2009, the school social worker at Jacob's school filed a truancy petition with the Juvenile Court in Fulton County.  At the time, Jacob had missed 35 out of 60 days of school and Jacob's highest grade in any class was a 35 (70 is a D).  He had been expelled from school six times for fighting and talking back to teachers.  The Truancy Intervention Project (TIP) became involved and assigned volunteer and GTLA Community Outreach Chair Erik Olson of The Olson Law Firm to represent Jacob and be his advocate. 

On October 13th, more than a dozen GTLA members attended a training with the Truancy Intervention Project (TIP) at the State Bar to learn how they can help kids like Jacob.  TIP volunteers work one-on-one with children as advocates inside the courtroom and role models outside to help children stay in school.

"The training really showed how significant the issue of truancy is in Georgia.  TIP is a great cause and I look forward to helping some students with their truancy cases," said Josh Madsen of Millar & Mixon, LLC.

Experts agree that truancy is often the first sign of trouble and high school truancy has been linked to vandalism, daytime burglary and serious juvenile delinquency.  In Georgia, more than 88 percent of all adult prison inmates are high school dropouts.

TIP was started in 1991 by Judge Glenda Hatchett and former Atlanta Bar President Terry Walsh.  Since then, TIP has served more than 6,000 Georgia children with an impressive success rate of 82 percent.  TIP staff created an early intervention initiative to work with families and identify underlying problems that often accompany truancy.

"When the TIP staffers talked, you could feel their conviction.  It was inspiring," said Jeb Butler of Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer, LLP.

Volunteer attorneys are required to attend a five hour training to become familiar with how they would serve as a lawyer in truancy cases or guardian ad litem for children in early intervention cases assigned to TIP.  

"Plaintiffs’ lawyers talk a lot about helping out the little guy by keeping insurers and corporations honest, and I hope we do a good job at that.  But by helping a struggling child stay in school, a lawyer can give assistance that is both timely and targeted directly at someone who needs it," Butler continued. 

And where is Jacob now? Thanks in part to Erik and TIP, he passed all of his classes his sophomore year and began his junior year.  He has expressed interest in becoming a lawyer and is on track to graduate from high school in 2013.

 

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