The School Outreach Prevention Program is the actualization of a collaborative effort among the Washington County Children Services Broad and six Washington County school districts. The Program seeks to identify and service at-risk children to deter their entrance into the Child Welfare or Juvenile Court Systems.
Designed/implemented in the 1994-1995 school year, the Program’s main goal was to identify children, grades K-5, who were at risk of academic, behavioral, or social failure and to reduce risk by instilling resiliency factors through the use of individualized service/supports for children and families. The original target population (grades K-5) was chosen on research presented by Lorion, Hightower, Work and Schockley, 1987, that indicates attempts to reduce risk/increase resiliency are more effective at elementary school age levels. Nevertheless, in 1997, with the creation and financial support of the Wellness Block Grant initiative and goal to reduce teen pregnancies, the Program expanded services to at-risk children grades 6–8. In 1997, the Program was recognized as one of forty-four “Best Practice” educational/ community collaborative programs in Ohio. In 1998, Ohio’s Attorney General’s Office made a financial donation in recognition of the Program’s effectiveness. In 2005 the Program was listed as a ‘Most Promising Child Welfare Program’ on the Children’s Bureau website.
Between the inception of the Program to the present, well over one thousand (1,000) students were identified and provided a combination of the following core services:
- Parent Education / Parent Support
- Outreach
- Follow-Up Services
- Parent Mentoring
- Education and Literacy
- Nutritional Education
- Referral for Health and Mental Health
- Child Lures Program/Internet Safety
- Conflict Resolution Groups
- Children of Alcoholics Group
- Information Dissemination
- Home Visiting
- Respite Care
- Emergency Family Assistance
- Life Management Skills Training
- Family Violence Counseling Services
- Teen Pregnancy Prevention Services
- SOPP 4-H Group
- Children’s Grieving Support Group
- Emotional Intelligence Building
Siblings and/or other family members of children with open cases receive auxiliary services, and many children participate in the Program’s abstinence based classroom presentations and Child Lures.
Currently, the Washington County Children Services has Prevention Specialists and a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coordinator that serve the Belpre, Marietta, Fort Frye, Frontier, Warren, and Wolf Creek School Districts. The School Outreach Prevention Program has also been instrumental in the creation of Prevention Advisory Committees to enhance prevention efforts within school districts’ communities.
The School Outreach Prevention Program is Washington County Children Services Board’s attempt to increase accessibility to outreach services within our county. The need to expand services and the need to secure school/county and/or state financial support for the Program have been identified. Presently, Washington County Children Services utilizes an Ohio Department of Education Grant, TANF money, school districts’ contributions and various other competitive grants, donations, and fund raising to supplement the Program’s funding.
This program consists of Prevention Specialists, a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coordinator, and a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Specialist who service children countywide in grades K-8 who are experiencing, or are at risk of, academic, social or behavioral difficulties. Using individualized approaches, the program strives to decrease risk factors and raise children's resiliency to achieve better outcomes for children and their families. SOPP's Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coordinator offers the Responsible Social Values Program, an abstinence based curriculum for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students, which promotes sexual abstinence, positive decision making, and improved parental involvement with children.
