SALISBURY — The Rowan County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council has identified program areas for fiscal year 2023-2024 that will use anticipated funding from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety to develop.

The anticipated funding is a total amount of $413,591 and the county will have to put up a 30% match, which is $124,077.

Officials have identified 21 areas for potential additional funding, including one-on-one mentoring services, tutoring and academic enhancement, community service, teen court, family counseling, substance abuse counseling, temporary and runaway shelter care and specialized and temporary foster care.

The other areas involve:

• Parent and family skill building
• Interpersonal skill building, such as developing empathy, active listening and strengthening emotional intelligence.
• Vocational skills
• Experiential skills
• Mediation and conflict resolution, including for truancy, victim-youth and family group conferencing and responsive circles
• Psychological assessments
• Home-based family counseling
• Individual, group and mixed counseling
• Services addressing problems with sexual behavior
• Group homes
• Juvenile structured day programs designed for expelled and suspended youth who are sanctioned by the courts.

The juvenile crime prevention council consists of up to 26 members and meets the third Wednesday of every month. Currently, the council has 23 members. Rowan County Commissioner Judy Klusman is the chairperson and noted Tuesday night that the state has been cutting funding.

“Sadly the state has been cutting us back little by little each year where we really need to be inching up because of the true need for these programs,” Klusman said. “We get referrals by our school resource officers and counselors, along with court personnel and also we have parents who have learned about the programs and have requested to be a part of them.”

These Rowan County programs work with the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council:

1. Discovering yourself through barnyard adventures
2. Get hired — youth employability program
3. Juvenile restitution
4. Kids at Work! Rowan
5. Sex offender specific cvaluation and treatment
6. Shift mentoring program
7. Strengthening families
8. Teen Court
9. YDI Family Life Skills Academy

For the fiscal year of 2022-2023,  250 juveniles have been involved with these programs, which serve delinquent and at-risk youth, from ages 6-17.

The state fiscal year for 2023-2024 will begin on, or after, July 1.