Jacksonville Journey working to create programs for at-risk teens

The Jacksonville Journey is working to give at-risk teenagers in the River City more chances for success.

On Wednesday, members of a subcommittee talked for two hours about teen programs and what they would like to see offered to keep teens off the streets and out of trouble.

“When looking at the scope of programs the Jacksonville Journey is funding, there’s a gap where a lot of funding is going to very young children -- elementary and middle -- very few for teens,” said Tracy Tousey, the chair of the subcommittee.

Tousey said they’ve come up with a map of target ZIP codes with the teens who are most at risk.

She said they are going to send out a survey to teens to also get their opinion about the programs they think they could benefit from.

“The idea is we want to make sure that we’re hearing from students about what’s important to them and not just making assumptions,” said Tousey.

Right now, the Jacksonville Journey has an operating budget of about $5 million. Officials there say they had about $2.28 million available.

Now that Mayor Lenny Curry asked to take $500,000 from that for additional man-hours to fight crime in the city, they have $1.78 million. That money will be used in programs like ones for at-risk teens.

Tousey said once they send the surveys out and gather more information, they’ll put together a recommendation of programs needed.

Their next meeting to discuss teen programming is on Feb. 16 at 10 a.m.

Cox Media Group