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First Graduates Complete Juvenile Drug Court

EVERETT -- A little more than a year ago, Brandon Fields thought about
little more than doing drugs and hanging out with his friends.

Matt Toth also took drugs and was failing in school.

Today, Fields, Toth and three other young people have a new perspective.
The five are the first graduates of the Denney Juvenile Justice Center Drug
Court, an alternative program aimed at getting kids out of the justice
system before they get firmly rooted in it.

The five attracted a standing-room crowd at the facility Friday for the
cele-bration upon their completion of a rig-orous, yearlong program aimed
at reversing self-destructive habits sur-ounding drugs and alcohol.

Several Snohomish County Superior Court judges joined Judge Joseph
Thi-bodeau, who is the father figure and dispenser of praise or punishment
for the two dozen or so people entered in the program.

County Executive Bob Drewel and county councilwoman Barbara Cothern also spoke.

Another seven youths are expected to graduate in April, and there will be
more as the participants complete treat-ment.

"It's been a pretty good week," said Toth, 17, of Lakewood, who learned
earlier this week that he also will be able to graduate from high school
this spring.

"I didn't know what I was getting into originally, but I'm glad I did it.
You've got to work at it," Toth said of the pro-gram.

Fields, 17, of Lake Stevens, said, "I wanted to prove to myself and my
family that I could do it - succeed."

As he looks back, Fields sees what he and his former friends had been doing
was trying to impress others.

"The more I think about it, they were losers," he said. "They're not going
to go anywhere in life."

Duane Henderson, 18, of Sno-homish, jumped into the program to protect his
driver's license. He's helping support his family and go to school at the
same time. His alcohol-related offense otherwise would have meant loss of
the license until age 21.

"You've got to put (the pro-gram) in front of everything else you're
doing," he said.

That means attending four group therapy sessions and one individual therapy
session a week for a while. They also have to attend 12-step program
meet-ings, stay in school or on the job and submit to frequent drug tests.

Failing a drug test or missing meetings means some time in juvenile
detention or other punish-ment.

While Fields had no goals before getting straightened out, he's now
considering becoming an electrician. Toth wants to go to college and
perhaps become a teacher.

Henderson also is looking at college, as are the two other grad-uates,
Britney Johnson, 17, and Lindsay Byrne, 16, both of Marysville. Johnson
said she wants to work for the FBI.

Field's father, Rocky, praised the program and the juvenile court staff's
commitment to it, since no extra money was appro-priated to run it. His son
has changed his ways, and he's proud of him, he said.

Brandon Field has had an intri-cate support network going through the
program, and the future is a little scaiy without it, he admits.

"Now is the hard part," he said.

Henderson added, "We are on our own now, and we have to make good decisions."

Thibodeau, for one, is con-vinced they will.

"I don't know what the future holds for these kids, but I know they have
great tools and they've surely shown the responsibility in the last year,"
the judge said. "I'm convinced they will continue to make good choices. I
think they will do well."