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Court News Ohio
Court’s Mentoring
Program Changing Lives
By Jenna Gant
February 23, 2015
Spencer Kirksey and Noah Mirando are two friends bowling after school.
“Oh, my goodness – come on, come on. So close,” Mirando laughs.
They’ve only been hanging out since September, but already Kirksey says
he’s good pals with 14-year-old Mirando.
“He’s really opened up. He was really shy in the beginning, and now
it’s like I’m hanging out with one of my buddies,” Kirksey said.
Life threw Mirando a curveball when his mother became sick.
“I would get into arguments and every once in a while I would start
fighting people and always getting into trouble, always getting called
down to the court, and they said the next time I would be sent to juvi
and then foster home,” Mirando said. “I didn’t want to leave because my
mom was the only one I looked up to – she was the only parent in the
household. She was the only one I could count on, and I didn’t want to
leave her. I wanted to always stay by her side.”
With his mother now in a nursing home and his older brother working
12-hour shifts to keep the rest of his family in their apartment,
Mirando needed a healthy outlet to express his anger and he needed a
friend.
So every week Kirksey and Mirando meet up and hang out for a few hours.
The two met though the Delaware County Juvenile Court’s T.E.A.M.
Mentoring Program. The program started in 1999 but didn’t become part
of the Delaware County Juvenile Court until a year later. Patty Cram
took over the program in 2003, and she said it’s flourished ever since.
“The first year it just went ‘boom, boom,’” Cram laughed.
T.E.A.M. stands for “Together Everyone Achieves More,” and for Cram
that means pairing up at-risk youth with mentors from across the county.
“They have some problems somewhere along the line – that’s why the
school, or even parents, wants them in the program,” Cram said.
At the program’s beginning most mentors were adult community members.
Now Cram said most of the T.E.A.M. mentors are from Ohio Wesleyan
University. The college students have to perform community service for
one of their classes, and from September through May the students hang
out with their mentees, who range in age from 10 to 14. More than 300
kids have benefited from the program since its inception.
“’You just keep getting better and better.’ ‘You’ve turned it around.’
‘You’re maturing. I think this school year you’ve really matured a
lot.’ ‘I think hanging out with an older boy…’ ‘Helps a little bit,
right?’” Cram, Mirando, and Kirksey reminisce.
Kirksey liked the program so much he’s now in his second year mentoring.
“I wanted to keep going with the program because I liked what it stood
for and helping out the community,” Kirksey said. “I enjoy my time with
Noah. It doesn’t feel like I’m volunteering. It feels like I’m just
hanging out with a friend.”
And Mirando likes the activities they do and knowing that he can count
on Kirksey to be there in this life.
“I love hanging out with Spencer,” Mirando said. “He takes me places.
He’s like a big brother to me – a big brother that I never had. My
brother, he was never there for me.”
And it’s that relationship that makes the T.E.A.M. program a win-win.
The Delaware County Juvenile Court also has a program that supports
teen moms called M.O.M.S. – or Moms Offering Mentoring Support. That
program started in 2005.
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