DYS is model for nation

Missouri continues to be recognized nationally for its Division of Youth Services, named the country's model program by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, one of the nation's leading child advocacy groups.

Thanks to private funding from Casey, in the past year Missouri has been host to legislative delegations from around the country who visit to determine how they can replicate Missouri's success of recidivism one-sixth of most other states.

What they find is a program built on genuine care and affection for youths who so often have experienced only abuse and turmoil, and who didn't fully understand that they not only have the ability to make different choices in life, but they have the responsibility.

After visiting the facilities in Cape Girardeau last year, a senator from a nearby state told me, "Why can't everyone understand that it's less expensive to rehabilitate kids than to give them up to a life in prison?"

Where he comes from, many of the youths in state custody are shackled and locked away in cells. They're shaved and treated like hardened criminals. After release, most of them eventually end up in prison.

Missouri's response to the worst young offenders is much different. It relies on creating a nurturing environment for youths so they can open up and then demand more from themselves. The facilities are nice. The program stresses education and -- increasingly -- job skills.

At the beginning of their time with DYS, the youths' attitudes are usually lacking. What happens over the next six to 18 months, however, is transformational. They learn how to make good choices. They develop a sense of responsibility for themselves. They show respect to those and the world around them.

Some of these youths have done horrible things. But because those who work in DYS programs haven't given up on them, they don't either. Not all will thrive after DYS, but an overwhelming percentage do, a testament to a state system that works. Like the visiting senator said, that success saves taxpayers in the long run.

How did Missouri come to develop the nation's best program?

Much of the credit goes to its long-time director, Southeast Missouri State University graduate and Poplar Bluff native Mark Steward.

Listen to his regional administrators talk about Steward, and you will hear amazement about his ability to remember the names and faces of kids in each corner of the state. Talk to him yourself, and his love for what he does and the state he serves will humble you. It's not goody-two shoes either. His style is fun, infectious, even mischievous. Along with his wife Alice, another Southeast Missouri native, they are famous for opening their home and their hearts to DYS youths visiting the Capitol. On family trips, they often stop at facilities in other states to learn first-hand what innovations might be taking place there. More often than not, they're left shaking their heads at systems that lock kids away rather than nurture them.

Last month, Mark was recognized as the Outstanding Child Advocate of the Year by the Alliance for Children, Youth and Families. Typical of him, he was glad that snow and cold weather kept the ceremony on the steps of the state Capitol to a minimum, although Gov. Bob Holden, Speaker Catherine Hanaway, and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder were all present to make remarks.

I serve on the DYS state advisory board, which takes me into the facilities on a regular basis, and keeps me in contact with Mark. Mark has been offered numerous positions in other states, but always chooses to stay home. For a Poplar Bluff native whose teachers used to threaten to send him to Boonville, he's making a tremendous impact on the state -- and, with the help of the Casey Foundation, the nation. Congratulations, Mark.

Jon K. Rust is co-president of Rust Communications, which publishes the Southeast Missourian. His e-mail: jrust@semissourian.com.