hey folks pinal county sheriff mark lamb here so i am huge on youth redirection um and helping our youth in our community and trying to figure out better ways to make them better a few years ago we started the sheriff's youth redirection program it's a series of classes for these kids and it's designed to make them better we also do eight hours of community service which involves horse therapy that's why i'm sitting here with my guests today mindy she's with saddle sore and uh tell that tell the listeners a little bit about what you do yeah so here at saddle soar we bring the kids in to get familiarized with the horses they also do community service around here and they work hard but they get rewarded for that by getting to interact with the horses getting some one-on-one time learning about horse behavior and about themselves and how to be a productive member of society yeah anybody who owns a ranch or deals with livestock knows it's a lot of work it is a lot of work and so it's good to have these kids come out and help but what's cool is they also get to interact with the horses why what value does interaction with horses bring why are horses special why are horses special they're especially on so many levels try to give me a succinct because wired horses special to a horse owner could be days of answers yes um the horse really reacts to each individual and what they're feeling in their emotions and so they're non-judgmental they don't judge you and the kids can be themselves around the horses and opening them up so we started this re-youth redirection program a couple years ago with the intention of helping our youth in this community i'm fortunate to have a county attorney county attorney kent volkmer who's very was on board right from day one and we went to watsonville california we looked at some of the program the program they had and a few other places and finally we came i came back to the county attorney and said hey look i know what i want to do we're going to do the sheriff's redirection program and we're actually catching them before it even goes to the county attorney's office so they don't even know that these kids have potentially gotten in trouble and it gives us the opportunity to actually intervene we do four class hours along with the eight hours of community service which i'm gonna have you expand on that in a second but our four class hours are goal setting and planning and it's important i tell the kids look i don't care why you're here it doesn't matter because i can't change the past you can't change the past your parents can't change the past so we're focused on not about what you did but we're focused on getting better and the second class we do is digital media social media sexting the dangers of those things we talk about drugs and alcohol which is obviously a major issue especially with the rise of fentanyl in this country and then the fourth thing is we do a career night so we bring in a lot of different people to talk about we brought in army recruiters and ex-cons people i don't want to call mexico people who have been in prison who now have fixed their lives are successful in business we've brought in business owners politicians we've brought in a little bit of everything to give to give the kids a good look at it and then there's yours piece yes because i really don't think one or the other would be successful alone so when the kids get in here when we start the day with an ice breaker so the kids get to say something that they are proud of about themselves and it is huge when they smile and they acknowledge what they are proud of about themselves do you find that it's hard for them to do it though initially um in the beginning yes if it's their first time yes but now that they when they keep coming back they're expecting it and so they know um and they can be really good feedback whether it's getting good grades or bringing their grade up and being sober um or getting on the football team or yeah just just little things we uh we do the same thing in the class at the end of every class we have the kids tell us one good thing about themselves when they're with the horses and interacting if they don't have that confidence um the horses walk all over them you know the horse will push them around a little bit and they won't get their end goal so they got to learn to step up and be assertive what i love is once they find their confidence they learn that they can actually control an animal that is 1500 pounds you know that they are able to maneuver them around and that animal is doing what they want and it all comes down to confidence exactly so here they are held accountable we do require no cell phones appropriate wear and being respectful so they have that standard coming in knowing what to expect then we can relate it to the horses and how the horses are labeled as well if they're labeled a bad horse or a dangerous horse and oh we can't touch that horse so we relate it to that we take a horse into the round pen and school that horse and the kids get to get in there and try and communicate with that horse and really get hands on and they realize it's not a bad horse it's just a horse that is a strong personality exactly and we talk about that because each horse has its own personality and likes and dislikes heck i'd probably bite you if you sat on my back too exactly some of the kids they will label these horses they get in tough situations and they'll say this horse isn't listening to me this horse isn't doing what i'm asking it's to do um and my response to that is do you know anybody like that that's awesome how are you gonna handle that it's so true because then they start to see how their life is exactly we only require eight hours how many hours would you say the average kid puts in um at least three times that they keep coming back and then we're excited to have them back even they tell us we're not going to come back we're all done they show up that next saturday so what would you say is the difference between the first day they show up as opposed to even at the end of the eight hours or at the end of the time they've continued to show so we see a different child or a different teenager each time that they come in when they first arrive they're very standoffish and don't want to be there slouching dressing inappropriately and just phones phones yes cell phones and just that that teenage attitude um what i love is that when you show up you make all the kids put their phone in a plastic container yes i take it away their keys their cell phones the wallets it's like going into the pentagon right and then we talk about we talk about their attire and i say okay we showed up in sweatpants today so today i'm sorry but you're going to learn like next time you're not going to want to wear those you're going to be sweating out in the dirt or they're brand new air force ones tennis shoes that they wear little hair they're here that's what matters they're here and by the end of the day they are very polite respectful um smiling i see a lot of smiles and self-reflection um just a different teenager is someone that you want to be around two of the biggest things that we've tried to break through in this youth redirection program is when children make mistakes they think immediately that they're a bad kid which isn't true they're just mistakes we've all made them their parents have made them we've made them and the other thing is that the police are the bad guys because oftentimes we have to hold them accountable and so those are the two things the goals that we were trying to break through those those misconceptions and help the children understand that we actually do care we want to see them succeed they're not bad kids we've been fortunate to have mindy and we it's been such a successful program i think we've had over 150 kids come through our youth redirection program and i think we've had less than five actually reoffend i know we've just recently started working with you in the last year we're grateful to the original lady you know group that we worked with they did an amazing job as well that was hoof beats with hearts and uh we're glad to be working with you now thank you and i think every both of you guys are doing some amazing things and we thank you for picking up the torch and and really just providing your own little touch to it and i think that the kids really love it they do and we do as well we're really excited to have you and to be a part of this amazing program well thank you for joining us today and thank you mindy for everything in your family i know your husband's standing off camera thank you for all the work they do and uh for anybody not aware of our sheriff's redirection program come to the pinal county sheriff's office and we can get you familiar it's not just a program for kids who get in trouble it's also a program a mentorship program if you think that your child is on the wrong path this is a perfect opportunity to get him some help we take ages 10 to 17. so thank you everybody god bless and stay safe [Music] you