Our Town, Our Kids
Community Circles for Juvenile Justice
Recognizing that home is where our stories begin, Our Town, Our Kids is designed to enhance capacity of Kansas communities to reduce the number of youth at-risk for involvement with the juvenile justice system.
K-State Juvenile Justice Collaborative (K-State JJC) represents a multidisciplinary team from K-State, Fort Hays State University, and K-State Extension. A team approach combines diverse sets of expertise with the rich cultural and practice-based experience of local stakeholders. Together, groups will identify system-related hurdles that may negatively affect youth.
Study circles, a key component of the collaborative process, refers to the procedure of facilitating, developing, and training local stakeholders in process and content, increasing local capacity to investigate, analyze, and develop healthy youth initiatives.
Ultimately, Our Town, Our Kids aims to empower local communities with a comprehensive set of tools which will then be developed into a scalable toolkit offered to other counties across Kansas and beyond.
The 23 counties of the judicial districts involved in the project are -
1) 25th Judicial District: Finney, Greeley, Hamilton, Kearny, Scott, and Wichita
2) The combined 15th, 17th, and 23rd Judicial Districts: Cheyenne, Logan, Sheridan, Sherman, Rawlins, Thomas, Wallace, Decatur, Graham, Norton, Osborne, Phillips, Smith, Ellis, Gove, Rooks, and Trego
