ORD — Healing Hearts & Families and Valley County have entered into an understanding for the former’s diversion program.
This helps juveniles who have gotten in trouble for anything from drugs and alcohol to speeding to get help without getting trapped into the justice system and hopefully divert them back to the right track.
Most cases are brought to the group on the recommendation of the county attorney. Miranda Stoll of Healing Hearts says the amount of work the kids need to do keeps it from being an easy way out.
“They have to do 40 hours of community service, pay a $115 feed, write a letter of apology and, for the speeding cases and stuff like that, go meet with the person that pulled them over, they have to continue to go to school,” she explains. “So there’s a lot of work that goes into it.”
“I don’t want people to be like ‘well, this is the easy way out’, because it’s not.” Stoll adds.
Healing Hearts & Families is headquartered in Broken Bow and partners with Valley, Custer, Garfield, Greeley, Loup, Wheeler and Blaine Counties. The diversion program has worked with 19 kids in Greeley County, 31 in Custer and, so far, none in Valley.