For information on volunteering at the Juvenile Probation Department, please call (360) 577-3100
Cowlitz County Youth Services Center welcomes community volunteers in all areas of its operations.
Working with youthful offenders can be a very complex task and requires extensive training. On the other hand, working with young people in isolation from the community in which they live would make the task virtually impossible. Therefore, our attempt has been to structure the volunteer program so that citizen participation will work safely and effectively for everyone concerned.
Each volunteer will be assigned to a probation officer for at least one month before obtaining a permanently assigned task. It is very important that a volunteer understands the necessity of working closely with probation staff. Therefore, we require each volunteer to spend some training time shadowing and helping a probation officer. The Juvenile Probation Department will make that assignment.
When their training process is complete, a volunteer will design a placement for him/herself which, hopefully, meets the needs of the youth or youths, the staff, and the volunteer. This should be based primarily on the volunteer's interest; however, specific and immediate needs of a particular youth or staff may necessitate a compromise assignment.
If a citizen is primarily interested in supporting the Youth Services Center without making direct contact with offenders, we are compiling a roster of names, addresses and phone numbers. This will be used when we have tasks that require community support and organization. No formal training will be required for this type of participation. Individuals and organizations on this roster will receive any informational mailing we are able to produce. If you would like your name added to the Community Support Roster, just call the Juvenile Probation Department at 577-3100.
Because of the sensitive nature of the youths' status here, it is important that all information relating to the youth in our program be handled in total confidence. The issue of confidentiality is so important that any individual or group violating this trust will not be allowed to continue in their participation.
