Reflection

     In my case, my progress is up to the choices of the respondents (the teens committing the crimes). I can merely suggest classes and projects to help them. Once they are finished with peer court it is up to them to acknowledge their wrong doing and change their behavior. However, to improve their choices my goal once again is to ask questions to get to know them better and assign classes or community service to help them find their selves and drive them away from drugs/alcohol/bad behavior/etc.

     Some changes I think I should act upon to help reach my goal would be to pay more attention to some of the answers of these kids. Most of the time the jury recognizes that the main problem is that these kids don't have anyone in their life to look up to. They're getting drugs or alcohol within their own household or their parents behavior rubs off on them. One of the many dispositions we assign is an adult mentor; someone they can talk to about their problems and hopefully gain good and healthy advice from.

     My mentor and dad, Jeff is a huge help with my progress and overall support of the project. His knowledge of court systems and people in general is a huge help to me. Some background knowledge on how I got into peer court and volunteering started through my father. He encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and be apart of something far from what I was used to. This helped me out a lot because I tend to be hesitant in doing things I'm not familiar with.

     Overall, I think my progress in this project is successful and worth the time and effort. I've seen friends and close ones fall into the path of bad behavior and its affected everything about them and changed them for the worst. This is my overall motivation to help other teenagers; I don't want to see them end up like the people I love ended up.