The Volunteers 3 PEER JURY A lot of communities have ­ adopted a peer jury program. ­ These programs are often run through local villages and townships in conjunction with the police department. Peer jury programs give “discretion to police officers and departments to refer cases, typically for local ordinance or statute vio- lations, and always for first-­time offenders ages 12–18 who had not fin- ished high school” (Fieldman 2017). More often than not, the sentencing for peer jury cases involves community ser­vice ­because the “crime” is rel- atively minor. Breaking curfew is one that we saw regularly at my previ- ous library. Libraries are fantastic partners for ­ these students ­ because teen librarians understand that most of ­these teens are good kids who made bad choices or ­were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In my experi- ence, a lot of the teens that need hours are not current library users. We can combine the much coveted “how do I get new teens in to the library” with the “how do we create lifelong library user” questions. If you ­ were having a ­really bad day and dreading having to do community ser­vice and you got to the library and ­were treated with dignity and re­spect, how would you feel? We often say as a profession that the hardest part is get- ting them in the building. Now ­they’re ­ there! Sometimes without a peer jury, teens are still assigned court-­ordered community ser­vice. The same ideas apply. A ­rose by any other name and all that. ­ There are a number of religious organ­izations that require ser­vice before advancing with their schooling. While the numbers and time requirements vary, the under­lying tone in all of ­these institutions is volunteering your time in the ser­vice of ­others. Once again, you have the potential for both one-­on-­one and group proj­ects. Do you want to do a drive or something similar but know that you cannot ­ handle it all yourself? This is exactly the kind of proj­ect that goes hand in hand with ecclesiastical ser­vice. They can do the logistics while you provide the space and sign off on the hours. More than likely if ­ there is one teen in your community who needs the hours, ­ there are prob­ably more teens who need the same, and they can all work together. For more prolonged ser­vice, ­ there are youth groups that have ser­vice as part of their under­lying mission all year long. ­ There is no reason why ­ these groups cannot come to the library to volunteer. ­ People ­don’t always think of libraries in terms of community engagement. ­ These are the same ­ people who think it must be so nice to sit and read all day. They ­ don’t say that to you ­because ­they’re trying to undermine what you do they just ­ really have no idea how much libraries have changed and evolved. When they think
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