FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Susan Benson Phone: 305-592-7473 E-Mail: [email protected]
ARISE FOUNDATION RESPONDS TO LAWMAKERS HEARING ON GIRLS IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
The ARISE Foundation announced today that it is establishing a Girls Initiative to provide gender specific awareness training for staff of the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The founders of the Arise Foundation, Edmund and Susan Benson, stated “that the Girls Initiative is designed to bring a heightened awareness to DJJ staff about the differences in risks affecting boys and girls in detention.” They stated further that “in all their years of working with at-risk juveniles, they have concluded that girls in the juvenile justice system and those at-risk of becoming involved in the system are highly underserved due to an historical and predominant focus on at-risk boys.” The Bensons determined from their work in DJJ facilities that certain risk factors are associated only with girls. They pointed out that “those risk factors include, but are not limited to, sexual abuse, sexual assault, bullying, substance abuse, early aggression, poor academic performance, gang membership and teen pregnancy.”
The Bensons have developed this initiative in partnership with Vicki Lopez Lukis, an ex-offender, who in 1997 was sentenced to a 27 month sentence at a federal women’s prison for a “honest services” mail fraud conviction. President Clinton commuted her sentence in November 2000 and since then she has devoted her time working with the Girls Advocacy Project (GAP), the only comprehensive intervention/education project in the State of Florida specifically serving girls while they are in detention. Ms. Lopez Lukis stated “that based on my personal experience with the justice system and my work with GAP, I have had the opportunity to observe the delicate issues that apply uniquely to women and girls in the system.” She pointed out that she her work has allowed her to watch staff interact with these young women in a detention setting. Based on those observations, she stated that “it is clear that all who work with girls would benefit greatly from a training that reviews the risk and protective factors related to female juvenile offenders.” According to Ms. Lopez Lukis, the girls’ path to delinquency is directly related to their unique risk factors and that “a greater understanding of them will result in more effective intervention by the staff that work with and supervise the girls during their involvement with the juvenile justice system.” She stated that “in all cases, this training must take into account the differences (race, class, culture and sexual orientation) among girls that need to be acknowledged.”
The Bensons stated that the Girls Initiative began in January, 2005 and will be provided to girls in detention at the Broward and Miami-Dade Regional Juvenile Detention Centers, Milton Girls Juvenile Residential Facility, Monticello New Life, Kingsley Center in Arcadia and Florida Institute for Girls in West Palm Beach. Mr. and Mrs. Benson expressed their deep appreciation to the Florida Congregational Delegation for providing the funds for the Girls Initiative under a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a component of the U.S. Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. They stated that the monies for the program came from an earmark spearheaded by Congressman Lincoln Diaz Balart with bipartisan support from several members of the Florida Delegation, including Congressmen Mario Diaz Balart, Allen Boyd, Jim Davis, Adam Putnam, Peter Deutsch, Mark Foley, Kendrick Meek, Alcee Hastings, Clay Shaw, Porter Goss, John Mica, Bill Young, Ander Crenshaw, Dave Weldon and Congresswomen Katherine Harris, Ileana Ros Lehtinen, and Ginny Brown-Waite.
For more information about the ARISE Foundation, please contact Edmund and Susan Benson at 4001 Edmund F. Benson Blvd., Miami FL 33178 (305) 592-7473 www.ARISElife-skills.org About the Arise Foundation
The ARISE Foundation, headquartered in Miami, Florida, is a not-for-profit educational foundation established in 1986 for the sole purpose of giving at-risk youths the life management skills and knowledge society demands of them. They reach children in elementary school before they are primed for crime; in middle and high school before they are likely to engage in drugs, become pregnant, join gangs or exhibit other delinquent behavior; and in juvenile justice facilities to help prevent youth from becoming career criminals.
Since 1986, Edmund and Susan Benson, co-founders of the ARISE Foundation, have dedicated their personal and professional lives to provide at-risk youth the life management skills and knowledge that can help them both survive and thrive in our society. Their motivation comes from their own life experiences. Edmund Benson was a school dropout and after a successful career in business, decided to retire early to achieve a life long goal to help disadvantaged youth. Susan Benson, an educator with a Masters Degree and more than 27 years of experience teaching hearing-impaired and learning-challenged children, recognized how vital a contribution could be made to young people by offering them life-skill lessons designed to strengthen them from the inside out.
Together, they created award-winning, statistically validated, professionally managed life-skills program called Secrets of Success (SOS), which includes more than 40 life-skill courses comprised of 100 publications covering 260 life-skills topics. Invariably, they picked up where parents and teachers, for one reason or another, have missed out. What they know is that at-risk youth must consciously be provided with the skills necessary to become productive members of our society. These pro-social skills cannot be learned on the street, bought at the local convenience store, or checked out of a library. They must be observed and taught.
The ARISE life management skills programs, ideally suited for after school, provide skills in anger management, conflict resolution, how to cope with bullying, self-esteem enhancement, domestic abuse, teen pregnancy reduction, the tools needed to keep and find a job, how to make good decisions, building a support system, plus lessons on drug, alcohol and tobacco avoidance. ARISE extensive health related lessons provide disadvantaged youth with a fresh approach to building and maintaining a healthy body and mind.
ARISE programs are based on the philosophy that to become healthy, capable adults children and adolescents must develop healthy behaviors, communication and decision-making skills, and the means to develop critical thinking and interpersonal skills. ARISE evidence based programs provide the tools to address these important issues.
For five years, The University of Miami Department of Sociology evaluated the ARISE program annually. According to the University of Miami summary, the evaluation data from entry and exit interviews shows significant improvement in knowledge of issues included in the program’s content.
ARISE is currently taught to approximately 2,500 youth each week in over 40 secure Department of Justice facilities from the Everglades to the Florida Panhandle. Since 1996, they have trained and certified more than 3,000 Juvenile Care Officers (guards) as life skills instructors. These guards have delivered and documented over three million hours of ARISE life management skills instruction to the most serious delinquents incarcerated in the State of Florida.