2005 Connecticut Code - Sec. 46b-149d. Demonstration project to establish school and community-based truancy prevention initiative. Sites. Grant eligibility. Establishment of truancy or family with service needs docket. Duties of Court Support Services Division.

      Sec. 46b-149d. Demonstration project to establish school and community-based truancy prevention initiative. Sites. Grant eligibility. Establishment of truancy or family with service needs docket. Duties of Court Support Services Division. (a) A demonstration project to establish a school and community-based truancy prevention initiative is authorized, which shall address the needs of public school children who exhibit patterns of unexcused absences from school. The Office of Policy and Management, in consultation with the Department of Education and the judicial branch, shall issue a request for proposals and award competitive grants. The Office of Policy and Management, in consultation with the Department of Education and the judicial branch, shall select at least two demonstration project sites.

      (b) To be eligible for such a competitive grant the program shall include:

      (1) A description of the policies that the community's board of education has adopted pursuant to section 10-198a, as well as the board's plans to work with the leadership of community truancy prevention initiatives to: (A) Monitor school attendance; (B) enhance any existing in-school truancy prevention programs; (C) establish after-school and summer school programs for truants; (D) provide mentoring programs for children at risk of being truant; (E) implement school and community-based intervention programs that target families with elementary school children who exhibit persistent patterns of absenteeism or truancy; (F) provide in-school alternative education initiatives for chronic truants; and (G) provide monthly truancy reports to the Office of Policy and Management.

      (2) Participation of youth service bureaus, juvenile review boards or other community-based service networks, to provide such services as truancy coordinators, mentorship programs and peer mediation for children as well as truancy case management for boards of education prior to the referral of a truant to a juvenile court. Such proposal may also provide for diversion of truants from the juvenile court in appropriate cases. Case management will include development of student intervention action plans, family counseling and parental education programs and, when appropriate, referrals for mental health and substance abuse assessments for the child and parents.

      (c) The Chief Court Administrator may establish a truancy or family with service needs docket for communities that have been awarded a grant and established a community-based truancy prevention initiative pursuant to this section. The Court Support Services Division shall, within available appropriations, make available to such communities a risk and needs assessment tool and funding for nonjudicial diversion of appropriate truancy cases to youth service bureaus and juvenile review boards. For court sanctioned intervention programs, the Court Support Services Division shall: (1) Provide parenting education programs; (2) expand existing programs to serve truancy cases; (3) provide intensive outreach and monitoring, including intensive probation services for chronic truancy cases; (4) provide for mental health assessment and outpatient mental health and substance abuse services; and (5) provide for short-term emergency residential placement for children with multiple referrals to the juvenile court for truancy, being beyond control and for being runaways.

      (P.A. 98-183, S. 2; P.A. 02-132, S. 27; P.A. 03-278, S. 99.)

      History: P.A. 02-132 amended Subsec. (c) by replacing "Office of Alternative Sanctions" with "Court Support Services Division" and making a technical change; P.A. 03-278 made technical changes in Subsec. (c), effective July 9, 2003.