Agoura Hills : Parents Group Wants to Help At-Risk Youth

Saying more needs to be done to help young people stay out of trouble, an Agoura Hills parents group has proposed establishing a nonprofit social service organization to serve at-risk youth.

It would be patterned after a Redondo Beach-based program that provides free, school-based counseling, as well as parenting classes, and individual and family therapy, said Dona Wright, a member of the loosely knit parents group, which calls itself Parents, Students Stand Together.

The program, which would be launched on a pilot basis, will be outlined by Wright at a 7:30 p.m. meeting Thursday at Las Virgenes Unified School District headquarters, 4111 N. Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas.

After the fatal stabbing last May of 16-year-old Agoura High School student James Farris rocked the community, the city set up a volunteer task force to develop recommendations on keeping kids safe. But, according to Wright, the recommendations were never acted on.

Agoura Hills City Councilwoman Louise Rishoff, who helped form the task force, said Wright is mistaken. The city has used the recommendations as a blueprint for a proposed, two-year pilot program for at-risk youth that would be run on a regional basis, Rishoff said. Plans call for hiring two full-time counselors to be mentors for young people and provide referrals to the area’s social service providers.

But Wright said the city’s proposed program would not go far enough because, with only two full-time staffers, it would be unable to serve all the needs of the region’s young people. She said it would also duplicate a similar program run by the Sheriff’s Department and be a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Dan Smith, executive director of the Redondo Beach-based South Bay Youth Project, said Wright has a daunting task ahead of her because it is not easy to set up a nonprofit social service agency. She is wise to try to launch the program on a pilot basis, he said.