Mike Ream

Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Mike Ream, left, deputy director, talks during a staff meeting with Nathan Ross, prevention coordinator, center, and Judi Renfro, behavioral unit coordinator at the Bradley County Justice Court on Wednesday.

When Juvenile Court employees in Bradley County saw funding being cut last year from programs that help children, they knew this year likely would see the same.

So they started to plan.

Deputy Director Mike Ream and Director Terry Gallaher saw empty space where the former family friends case management program worked and made some calls.

As they arranged a way to keep working with troubled children and their families, the program's $144,000 annual grant dropped to $60,000.

Through work with the courts, school system, local churches and a Chattanooga psychiatric treatment center, Mr. Ream and Mr. Gallaher kept the 10-year-old program alive by reordering its work and adding a day treatment center for youth edging toward trouble.

"It was kind of a lot of luck and basically an answer to prayer," Mr. Ream said of how all the pieces finally fit together. The Bradley County Behavioral Unit opened in May but will not offer full services until August.

The family friends case management service assisted an estimated 100 families in Bradley County each year to keep children with behavior problems from worsening by connecting them with counseling and other rehabilitative services.

The functions of family friends now are among many duties of the new behavioral unit housed at the Juvenile Court. The new unit also will operate a day treatment center with a teacher from the Bradley County school system to run academic classes for students.

The school system will assign students to the treatment center based on documented behavioral issues and parental consultations. At the center students will work on general curriculum classes along with case management, social modification programs, family intervention and other activities, Mr. Ream said.

"What we've got to do is find out what the problem is," said Dr. Joy Yates with the school system.

Dr. Yates said the key to the program is getting services to children before behavior problems escalate, and the new program puts all the services in a position to better communicate.

Before this new model, Dr. Yates said, there wasn't any program to help students who were beginning to show behavior problems not severe enough that they already had been through the court system.

Steve Topping is regional director for Cumberland Hall, which will review and assess the family and children's needs and connect them with where to go for help, much of which will be on site.

"This is so they don't walk out of court wondering what's the next step," Mr. Topping said. "From my experience this is very unique; we're actually having our full-time staff physically located in the courthouse."

Cumberland Hall will lease office space at the Juvenile Court building, which is one way Mr. Ream said the program is making up the funding gap between last year and this year's grant.

The leasing agreement still is being negotiated, and Mr. Ream did not have the cost available.