PO on Wheels and Jefferson Awards

Recently, two articles on San Francisco's programs have appeared in the SF Chronicle.
This morning, the Chronicle featured Darren Dill, a specialized probation officer working with homeless probationers in the Tenderloin and SOMA. Officer Dill is an active member of the CJC steering committee, bringing his expertise to the planning board and was a panelist at the CJC Town Hall held in January. An excerpt from the article:

Dill is believed to be the only probation officer-on-wheels working with homeless people in the country, a simple idea for which he recently won the California Probation Officer of the Year Award.

"The simplest approaches are sometimes the best," said Lisa Lightman, who directs special courts for drug offenders and mentally ill people within the Superior Court system. "What he's doing is extraordinarily unique. It really brings supervision up a notch when you can go out and make contact with people where they live."

On Sunday, the Chronicle featured another key person involved with innovative solutions in San Francisco Superior Court - Retired Judge Ina Gyemant - who founded Youth Treatment and Education Court (YTEC), San Francisco's Juvenile Drug & Behavioral Health Court. The program, which began in 1997, has since grown and partnered with the San Francisco Unified School District to offer a specialized high school, the Principal Center Collaborative (known as the PCC), that offers integrated behavioral health services alongside a traditional high-school curriculum. Judge Gyemant was awarded a Jefferson Award for her work in establishing YTEC, and will be featured on KPIX Channel 5 tomorrow on the 6pm nightly news.