Vision, Mission, and Values

Vision Statement

To be a catalyst for life changes for juvenile offenders in Tehama County.

Mission Statement

We are committed to a restorative approach to juvenile crime and conflict that promotes justice and resolution for victims, and accountability, personal development, and the opportunity for a life change for each youthful offender we serve.

What exactly do we do?

The Restore Program acts as an alternative to the traditional judicial procedure in diverting youth before adjudication. We conduct an intervention with a mentor with the goal of imparting tools and strategies that lead to a transformative life change. The program uses non-professionals as catalysts to institute positive changes in the lives of youth with the goal of decreasing recidivism back into the justice system.

Core Values

Respect – To treat people in the manner in which you expect to be treated.

Integrity – Doing the right thing even if no one is looking.

Responsibility – A form of trustworthiness; the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one’s conduct.

Honesty – Truthfulness, sincerity, authenticity.

• We have an absolute belief that every person has potential and it is their unique strengths and capabilities.
• We believe that what we focus on becomes one’s reality – focus on strength, not labels.
• We believe the language we use creates our reality – both for mentors the youth they are working with.
• We believe that change is inevitable – all individuals have the urge to succeed, to explore the world around them and to make themselves useful to others and their communities.
• We believe that positive change occurs in the context of authentic relationships.
• We believe that a person’s perspective of reality is primary (their story)– therefore, need to value and start the change process with what is important to the person – not the expert.
• We believe that people have more confidence and comfort to journey to the future (the unknown) when they are invited to start with what they already know.
• We believe that it is important to value differences and the essential need to collaborate.
• We show equal concern and commitment to victims, offenders and communities by involving all in the process of justice.
• We value deep understanding the human impact of criminal behavior has on a community, and we encourage accepting of responsibility, expressing remorse, and taking action to repair the damage caused by the crime.
• We believe that offenders should become fully integrated, respected members of the community.
• We support offenders, while encouraging them to understand, accept and carry out their obligations.
• We recognize that while obligations may be difficult for offenders, obligations should not be intended as punishment, but a method of taking responsibility for actions.
• We believe crime should involve opportunities for dialogue for both victims and offenders through the means of a Victim Offender Conferencing.
• We believe in finding meaningful ways to involve the community and to respond to the community bases of crime.
• We encourage collaboration and reintegration of victims and offenders, rather than coercion and isolation.
• We believe in interagency cooperation and coordination in dealing with crime.
• We believe in community involvement in preventing and controlling crime, improving neighborhoods and strengthening the bonds among community members resulting in community protection.

Values Continued

Several fundamental values are central to the operation of Restore. These values are derived from the tenets of ecological and community psychology (e.g. Fairweather & Davidson, 1986; Rappaport, 1977). A central notion is the idea that a focus on positive areas of change rather than deficits or pathologies is a more beneficial approach to preventing and decreasing delinquency. The other values of Restore simply elaborate upon this basic premise.

Restore builds upon the strengths of youth by training advocates to focus on solu­tions rather than problems. Specifically, advocates are instructed to concentrate on utilizing the strengths of each youth to address areas of needed intervention. Reinforcing positive behaviors is thought by Restore to be a far more effective method of behavior modification than punishing negative acts, a strategy over­emphasized by families of delinquent youth and juvenile courts. Emphasizing a youth’s strengths helps advocates model a non-blaming approach to behavior change for both parents and youth. This emphasis on strength is likewise more likely to allow the youth and family to experience successful and positive behav­ior changes.

Second, Restore’s values suggest that all youths have the right to basic resources in our society. These include resources such as food, shelter, safety, education, free time activities, and due process. Intervention training and implementation specifically focuses on ensuring that advocates are capable of modeling and teaching youths and their families’ tactics to fulfill these and any other needed resources within their community.

Third, Restore stresses open communication and strict confidentiality between the youth and the advocate. Advocates are not allowed to discuss any details con­cerning their youths with anyone not affiliated with Restore, a policy that extends even to the court system. Advocates are likewise not allowed to disclose confi­dential information to parents, teachers, or other significant figures in a youth’s environment unless a signed waiver has been obtained. This policy is explained to youth during their initial consultation, and also during an advocate’s first meeting with his/her youth. Open communication and confidentiality foster trust between the advocate and the youth, and protect the youth from social labeling by family and community members. The Restore Program is very concerned about possible social labeling, for it has been shown to have an adverse effect on this population of youth (Goffman, 1963).

Another key value of Restore is working intensively with youths in their respec­tive communities. Because Restore stresses the importance of environmental influ­ences on the behavior of young people, it is essential that the intervention occurs where these influences are most salient. This means that advocates encourage youths to utilize local resources (e.g. the neighborhood library, neighborhood recreation center, family members, etc.) before more distant or less available ones are considered. Teaching youths to access and control resources in their imme­diate environments has been found to ensure more longstanding change because such proximal resources are more readily accessible to these youths, and there­fore these resources have the potential to exert a stronger and more immediate influence on these youths than more distal resources.

A final value of Restore is that it avoids a victim blaming the approach in dealing with delinquents. Youths are not seen as having innate and intractable personal­ity problems that cause them to become delinquent; rather, these youths are seen as responding to environmental influences. Additionally, these youths are further hampered by unfair formal sanctioning policies and practices. These victim-blaming influences are especially prevalent in many home and school environ­ments. ADP avoids victim blaming by focusing on more empowering approaches such as strengths-based, environmentally appropriate behavior modification, and on resource identification and attainment.

Advocates are trained to understand human behavior and delinquency through two theoretical models: the behavioral model and the advocacy model. These models were chosen because earlier research has demonstrated each model’s efficacy (Davidson, Redner, Blakely, Mitchell, & Emshoff, 1987). Furthermore, it was determined that  advocates preferred utilizing both models because it allowed for a flexible and comprehensive intervention (Davidson et a1.,1990).

The behavioral model emphasizes the importance of a youth’s environment in determining his/her actions. It likewise suggests that the focus of change should be the youth’s environment and the youth’s interaction with their environment, not the individual youth per se. The intervention strategy arising from the behav­ioral model focuses on interpersonal problem solving. Training focuses on gaining the knowledge and skills involved in improving the relationships between the youth and significant others through the use of behavioral contracts and agree­ments. Additional skills taught to the advocate, the youth, and the family include effective communication and negotiation skills.

The advocacy model emphasizes that delinquency is distributed among all youth and that youth that are unfortunately labeled as delinquent differ from other youth in the material and personal resources available to them. This subset of identified youthful violators often reflects the members of society who are denied social privileges based on race or economic standing. Advocacy training focuses on helping advocates to develop the skills to teach their youths to be proficient in identifying and securing access to various community resources to address unmet needs.

The use of these two models aims to provide the youth and the family with additional skills they may need in responding to the interpersonal and societal challenges of life. These models combined provide the framework for the inter­vention model of Restore by allowing advocates to work within the youth’s natural environment, focus on the youth’s strengths, and continuous progress assessment.