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Hey everyone, and welcome back to Local Leaders the podcast
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and we are in a part three with Jenny four
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who is sitting across from me. She is a candidate
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for twenty first Judicial District Juvenile Court Judge. That's a
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lot and uh, we're here today to talk about some
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things that we didn't go really into detail on the
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last podcast that we put out, and we're going to
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give you a little bit of information on that. But Jenny,
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welcome to the show.
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Yes, thank you so much. Like you said, my name's
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Jenny Richardson for and I'm running for Juvenile Court judge
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and the twenty first JDC and that's going to be
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the parishes of Livingston, Tangeba and Saint Alena.
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There you go, and you got that out a lot
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better than idea just now.
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I've been saying it for a long time.
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That's right. And you mentioned that of course, you are
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in the runoff now for this election, and.
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I want to thank everybody for going out and voting
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for me, and I will love for you go out
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one more time and vote for me one more time
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so we can get this done.
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That's right. And so before we go any further, let's
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just mention that early voting is coming up.
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It is. It's April nineteenth through the twenty six so
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it doesn't start this coming Saturday, but next Saturday. And
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election day.
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Is May third, May third, And look, I usually vote
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on election day, or I always have. And the last
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podcast I did with Jenny Ford, she said no early
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vote because you never know what can happen, and she's right,
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and I did.
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And how bad was the rain? Oh, in March twenty ninth.
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It was terrible. So it's terrible and we're getting into
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baseball season, crawfish boils, everything else, and there's just other
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stuff that people want to do. So you have a
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week to early vote, and I think that that's just
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the best way to do it to make sure your
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votes heard.
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That's right. And look, we want the turnout to just
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keep going up and going up in the tri Parish area,
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So make sure you're early vote. You don't have to
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worry about any thing occurring, bad weather, what have you
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on election day. So let's get into talking about some
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of the things that you deal with that you're going
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to be dealing with. And the first subject I want
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to talk about is foster care. Big subject in I
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guess your industry. So let's talk about that real quick.
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The last episode that we did, you had mentioned that
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there's kind of an issue with foster families relative to
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the amount of foster kids.
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Yes, well, we definitely have the biggest, are the most
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kids in foster care and living some parish and even
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in our tri parish area in the state.
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Yeah.
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So, and we have I think in living Some Parish
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the least number of foster homes. Yeah. So even if
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our children go into foster home, we want to keep
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them around because our main goal of foster care under
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the law is reunification and if we aren't, if our
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kids aren't close to their bio parents, it's hard to
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keep that relationship alive.
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Yeah, very good. And let me ask you a question.
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Of course, ten plus years in the juvenile court system
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and you've seen a lot of things. One question from
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someone who doesn't live that life is what are you
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seeing as far as these children. Is it a younger
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generation of parents out there now versus what there used
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to be?
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Yes, I mean that's one of the things. But we
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have drug exposure to these children. There is no family
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unit at anymore. So sometimes these parents weren't even taught
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to parents. Yeah, and so now we have grandparents raising children,
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which and they're older and they shouldn't be running after
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kids either, so yeah, I mean it's in systematic poverty.
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So yeah, we have all kinds of issues. So I
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feel like sometimes when our families in foster care get
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back on their feet, then something happens, like the flood
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of sixteen or Ida or something, and then they're back
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in the spot that they were before, after all of
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the hard work they put in.
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Yeah, and as a juvenile court judge, what role would
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you play in that?
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So we would have court hearings to determine if the
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parents are working their case plans in order to get
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their children.
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Back, right, So very good, and that's the goal, right always.
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So under state law, the goal, the first goal is reunification, sure,
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and that is not always the best goal. And sometimes
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when these kids keep coming back into the system, dcfs
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can decide not to work a case plan with these
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parents and go straight determination. Or if it's sexual abuse
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or if it's something that has to do with a felony,
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and these parents could be in jail for years and
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years and years. We need to have stability for these children.
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So In some circumstances, dcfs can go straight determination, but
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the main goal, the first goal would be reunification for
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these children.
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Very good and stability, very stability.
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We have to have stabilities. So if reunification is not
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working and they're not working their case plan, then the
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goal gets changed to adoption. Guardianship different a custody of
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a grandparent to a grandparent. So yeah, there's other options.
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Let's talk about truancy real quick. Obviously the glaring one
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of the glaring issues not only in this Triparish area
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where you're involved, but also throughout the state. I mean,
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it's an issue. You're a big believer and I'm also
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a big believer in that truancy creates another issue, which
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is crime.
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Yes, and I have talked about that my whole time
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on the campaign trail. So we have first and second
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graders that are missing thirty and forty days of school.
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If we see that, we know something is going on
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in that home, and we need to get into that home,
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and we need to be proactive and not reactive. And
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I'll tell you why. If they are not reading. These
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children are not reading by the time they're in fourth grade,
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they're more then likely going to drop out of school. Well,
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what happens when they drop out of school? They wind
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up in the system. And we only pay around ten
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thousand dollars a year to educate our kids, but we're
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paying over one hundred thousand dollars a year to incarcerate
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one child. Yeah, and that just doesn't make sense to me.
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So we need to put some of that money in
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on the front end and figure out why these children
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aren't going to school and get them in school, so
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we are not paying for them for the rest of
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their lives.
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In regards to truancy. So there's parents out there where,
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especially if you're a single parent, you're a single mother,
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maybe you've got to work and you can't keep eyes
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on your kids twenty four to seven. Do you take
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that into consideration? Is that something that you Yes.
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But at the end of the day, a child needs
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to go to school. So if we're talking about a
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parent that are a kid that's in first and second grade,
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we know is the parent's fault that they're not going
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to school, So that parent does need to be held accountable,
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and under our Family and Needs of Services Statute, we
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can hold a parent accountable. And really that probably needs
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to be looked into by the Department of Children and
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Family Services because like I said, it could be anything,
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and that drugs can be in that home. The mom's
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not getting up to take these kids to school. Maybe
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she doesn't have a car to take these kids to school,
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she's not getting up to put them on the bus.
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It could be a number of things. But then if
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we're talking about a sixteen or fifteen, sixteen year old
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that's not going to school, well that's probably that child's.
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Yeah, the parent probably, yes.
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And sometimes these kids just don't want to get out
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of bed. Like we have the Sheriff's department that goes
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and tries to get these children out of bed. So
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at that point that child needs to be held accountable. Yeah,
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so we can put them on fends probation and if
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they're missing school. Every day they miss of school, they
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can spend seven days in the detention center. And that
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does happen.
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And does the schools themselves communicate with Oh?
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Yeah, So we work with Spencer Harris hand in hand.
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He is our the truancy at Central Office. So yes,
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I talk to him probably every other day because if
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I have a kid that is in our system, they
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have to have an educational plan. That is one of
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the things that they have to have. So even in
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our drug courts, if they're in our drug court, they
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have to have the option of going to a public school,
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even if that's an alternative school. So if they get
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kicked out while they're in drug court, that's a different story.
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But yes, so a lot of our kids, especially in
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Livingston Parish, would be in pine Ridge even if they're
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in our drug court. So and Spencer comes in Staff's
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drug court with us once a week. So once a week. Yes,
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Oh my gosh, she's amazing, so very good. He does
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what's best for the kids for sure, but he also
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has to see what's best for their school system.
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And it's it really is all about education. I mean,
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if they're not there, if they're not in, they're going
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to lase opportunities later on.
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Yep. And he's also been working with Jennifer Duay at
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the Sheriff's apartment. I'm not sure if her title captain,
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I don't know. She's high up. She's the head of
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the juvenile system at the Sheriff's office. Yeah, so they
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have been working together and going out to find these kids,
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knocking on doors to see why they're not in school,
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and then if they can't make contact with it with them,
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then it gets sent to our court system. So they're
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doing some pre stuff in living In parish to get
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these children in school. And sometimes it's just a knock
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on the doors. What it takes, yea, And that scares
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the parents enough to make sure that these kids are
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in school.
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Yeah, because they know somebody's holding gonna hold them accountable.
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Exactly.
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Very good. Let's talk about endorsements real quick. Okay, You've
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got some pretty good endorsements coming out of Livingston Parish.
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As a matter of fact, all eight mayors.
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All eight mayors or some of them are mayor lets. Yeah,
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so we have that all of that, we have the
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sheriff assessor, parish President Representative Roger Wilder, and I also
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recently picked up the tangiba Hoe Republican Parish Executive Committee endorsement.
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Wow. Very good. I want to talk next about mentorships. Okay,
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So the last episode that we did we discuss the
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importance of trades and learning these trades. There's some great
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trade programs that high schools put out, welding programs, et cetera.
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That these kids can get involved in. Not everybody's getting
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necessarily made for college, and some people don't want to
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go to they've had enough of school after high school.
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All of these children don't fit in one box. Yeah,
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and not all of them need to go to college.
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Some of them need to go to trade route and
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are very successful doing the trade route, especially these days.
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We talked a lot about it, a lot about that,
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but mentorships is something that's kind of dear to me
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as well. From experience can tell you that when you
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meet a mentor early in life, someone you look up to,
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it makes difference because you don't want to disappoint that person.
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We have some great programs in the pair in Livingston Parish.
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I'm sure it's the same in Tanji Saint Helena where
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we have JRTC program.
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Yes, Sergeant Gunny, Yeah.
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Sergeant Gunny are amazing and he's been.
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Doing great things. He's a good mentor. He's a good
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mentor for some of our drug court kids.
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Yeah.
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So, and I've talked about how when our kids are
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released from the secure facility Florida parishes, a lot of
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them are seventeen and they don't have a mentor. So
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we're putting them back in their same environment. So that
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was one of the things I wanted to focus on
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to get these kids mentors, to keep them on the
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right track until they can go get their TWIT card,
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until they can go offshore in the plants. If they
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don't have somebody to look up to and keep them
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on the right track, they're going to go back and
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commit a crime. Well, and you know, we have that
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Youth Challenge program for kids, and they talk about that. Yes, okay,
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so some of the kids that are troubled. You can
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start the Youth Challenge program at sixteen years old. So
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if all's a international guard, there's three different places that
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they have it and they rotate. It's like a four
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month program. And so the first two weeks of this
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program it's like boot camp all the stuff. People hate it,