Designed to keep teens in school and out of juvenile detention centers, the Methodist Services for Children and Families Intensive Delinquency Prevention (IDP) Program helps young teens face insurmountable problems.  The teens enrolled in the IDP Program have already been truant from school often enough that a judge requires that they attend this after school program as well as monitoring their school attendance. 

Skilled therapists and counselors work one on one with the teens to learn the root cause of their truant behavior and then together with the teen and his or her parents they design an individual plan for success.  The teens are held accountable to complete agreed upon tasks as they work on achieving their goals.

Regular group meetings offer a forum for the teens to share concerns, ideas and strategies as they work towards building stronger relationships with their families, school officials and each other.  The result is that the teens have positive role models that support them in their success and within the span of two semesters, most attend school daily so they can go to the IDP program in the afternoon.

This is a highly specialized support program is overseen by the Philadelphia Court System and is proven to be a model program in keeping young teens engaged in school, involve them in special activities and prevent them from succumbing to criminal behaviors.  The IDP more than doubled the number of teens served as of January 1, 2005.

For more information on the programs offered in Kensington, please call Janice Triplett at 215-423-9924 Ext.13 or Jtriplett@methodistservices.org.