The Berkshire County District Attorney's office will no longer provide direct services to students in county schools, such as teaching classes to help young people avoid substance abuse.
Starting in 2017, the Berkshire DA's office had a grant from the Massachusetts Attorney General's office to teach the Botvin LifeSkills Training program, which is designed to help students develop coping skills to deal with difficult social and emotional situations. The grant ran out last spring.
District Attorney Andrea Harrington said teaching the Botvin program took a chunk of her office's community outreach budget.
“It was really intensive,” she said. “We had five people in the office, full-time people, dedicated just to that program. It was a significant amount of money.”
Instead of teaching the Botvin program to students, the DA's office will provide course materials and train educators in the schools to teach the curriculum — something it has done in the past in districts like North Adams.
North Adams superintendent Barbara Malkas said it works out well to have someone students already know, a trusted adult, teach the class.
“We really want to have people who will have an ongoing relationship with that student, that allows them to provide a level of comfort and care that would go beyond regular classroom practice,” Malkas said.
Tara Barnes, the principal at Clarksburg School, said the DA's office used to teach an eighth-grade peer leadership program every week in the fall at her school. The office is not teaching that this year. She said the program helped promote empathy and respect amongst her students.
Barnes said that when the DA's office taught curriculum in the schools, she felt like she had experts in her corner she could call on.
“If the DA's office is actively coming into schools, we are making personal connections and building relationships with them,” Barnes said. “So that when we have questions, when we have concerns, we have someone to reach out to.”
Barnes said she hopes there is some kind of structure in place to continue to build those relationships with the DA's office.
Harrington said her office is available to provide classes on specific topics such as vaping, sexting and consent. But she said rather than focusing on direct services, her office can have a bigger impact by addressing policies for young people, such as a diversion program that offers young offenders of low-level crimes alternative consequences to jail time.
