Controversy and outrage over the conditions in the state-run Green Hill School juvenile detention facility located in Chehalis have been constant for more than two years as overcrowding has caused safety and security issues.
But another facility, often mistaken for or overshadowed by Green Hill School, continues to work with the county's youth with hopes that they can prevent them from going down the wrong path.
The Lewis County Juvenile Court program is an often overlooked part of the county government that operates under the county’s superior court judges. As the name suggests, the department and facility operate a juvenile court and detention center, but that's not the whole story.
A large number of staff working in the Juvenile Court building work with youth outside of the facility and have introduced new programs within the facility, such as a garden for those who have been detained.
Some youths are on probation and meet with a probation officer regularly. Others are engaged in the court’s diversion program, which helps youth avoid court and the criminal justice system. Even more are reached by the court's mentorship program, its outreach to prevent truancy, and its social activities that get adolescents involved in mountain biking, kayaking and more.
Lewis County Juvenile Court Administrator Shad Hail is responsible for everything that goes on within the county facility, which is tucked between Green Hill School and Southwest Parkland Drive in Chehalis.
According to Hail, everything done by Juvenile Court employees, both within and outside the facility, falls into three departments: guardian ad litem, detention and probation.
In service of those programs, Lewis County Juvenile Court employs around 32 full-time staff members and manages many more who volunteer as guardians ad litem and for other programs, like one meant to promote healthy social relationships between local youth called the Pro Social Activities Program. The program works with youths far and wide across Lewis County and sometimes beyond.
“We work with juveniles, not necessarily in this building, but from Packwood to Pe Ell and from Vader to Centralia and often north and south of that,” Hail said. “Sometimes, we’ll have cases that are kids from here that maybe they live in Castle Rock but they attend school in Winlock.”
Guardians ad litem
A guardian ad litem is often described as a representative of a child's best interest. They are often called to weigh in on issues concerning neglect, abuse or other issues concerning the parents or guardians of a juvenile. A guardian ad litem can be given broad responsibilities and rights to investigate parents and living conditions and make custody decisions, or they can be more limited in their objective by the judge in a court proceeding.
Someone who works as a guardian ad litem can be a lawyer, a mental health professional or a volunteer and must have training in certain child welfare subjects. They also are subject to significant criteria and vetting in order to qualify.
According to Hail, Lewis County’s program is supported almost entirely by volunteers — around 20 of them. Many of the youths who engage with a guardian ad litem are involved in a civil case and have committed no crime. Instead it may be a case to determine who a child should stay with or to determine abuse or neglect.
“A lot of people have the idea that only criminal things happen in a Juvenile Court, and that's absolutely not the case,” Hail said. “The (guardian ad litem) program, every dependency case… all of those kids from the entire county we're working with.”
Detention
The detention department of the Lewis County Juvenile Court facility operates similar to a county jail, but on a much smaller scale. The juvenile detention facility, with few exceptions, is meant for holding youths who have been arrested and are awaiting trial. The facility can hold between two and 18 youths at any time and, according to Hail, the average length hovers around 10 days. The longest a youth can be sentenced to detention after their case is heard is 30 days.
Within the detention center, the facility offers medical and mental health services, education and life skills training, which are some programs that are standard for a youth detention center. However, thanks to a bit of extra effort from the facility staff, the detention facility also installed an exterior garden and greenhouse in the last year that support the gardening program. The facility also offers an art program.
Probation
The word “probation” does not quite describe all that falls under the department within the Lewis County Juvenile Court. According to Hail, probation officers at the juvenile court engage with a fluctuating number of youth who are on probation in the county — between 70 and 100. The number of youths impacted in the community by programs under the probation department is likely much higher.
The probation department does many of the things one might expect, such as organizing work crews, community supervision and diversion programs. But it also runs the court’s truancy referral program and a growing mentorship program that was started in the wake of COVID-19 using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.
The mentorship program engages with youths in the community who may have been referred by a school or community member.
Those involved have not committed a crime. Instead, the program engages with young people early on to promote healthy social relationships in hopes of avoiding civil charges such as truancy or some that could be more extreme. Truancy is charged against youths and their parents when a student has missed too much school.
“I personally believe that there is nothing more impactful for a young person than a relationship with a positive, pro-social adult,” Hail said. “When you have an adult who cares come alongside and be like, ‘Hey let me show you the road a little bit here,’ that makes more of a difference, I think, than any other short little program we have.”
Does it work?
The number of youths impacted by the Lewis County Juvenile Court is difficult to quantify. While there are set numbers of cells in the detention center, and one could count the number of cases that come through the court facility, many programs outside the facility engage with even more people. Just recently, the court’s mentorship program organized a local school resource fair that included both food and clothing banks as well as vaccines, haircuts, sports physicals and more.
According to a legislative report by the Washington state Department of Children Youth and Families (DCYF), juvenile cases in the state fell between 2019 and 2022, and that includes Lewis County. The report shows the number of youths checked into the Lewis County juvenile detention facility dropped by more than 50% in that time period. The numbers show admissions into juvenile rehabilitation facilities such as Green Hill have also gone down in recent years.
However, many statistics provided by the state show dwindling numbers in 2019 and 2021 with an increase in 2022, suggesting the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted the number of cases seen by juvenile courts in the state.
Hail also said that case numbers, especially since the 1990s, have decreased.
However, he urges caution in thinking that struggles facing youths are going to go away. Hail mentioned specifically that many counties have moved to programs that prioritize keeping youths out of the criminal justice system entirely, which reduces the numbers greatly, but doesn't mean youths aren’t still struggling with the same challenges.
Hail hesitates to give any concrete numbers, and legislative reports provide numbers roughly two years after the fact. However, the juvenile court administrator urges caution and would sooner increase funding and programming at the court than think that services can start to ease up.
