Institutional Ministries
Daphne’s Story
Daphne is a vibrant, intelligent young lady who landed in the detention center jaded, skeptical, and bitter. Daphne’s mom abandoned her at the age of 2. Her dad repeatedly reminded her she would be nothing, just like her mom. Daphne worked hard in school and found every job she could to prove herself and yet [...]
Bibles Needed
Serve Our Youth Network is need of Bibles to give to juvenile offenders that we work with in the area juvenile detention centers and facilities we serve. We currently use the NIV Outreach Bible from Biblica (formerly International Bible Society). There are three ways you can help us out. Purchase a case or several copies [...]
Ringing in the New Year in Detention
We had a group from Glen Echo Christian Church in Des Moines host a New Year’s Eve party at the Polk County Juvenile Detention Center. Below are some of the kids’ responses: “Thanks for spending your New Year’s with us when you didn’t have to. It shows a lot of humility and that you care. [...]
Thank You for the Time (and the Candy and Cupcakes Too!)
A group from Glen Echo Christian Church in Des Moines, IA came into the Polk County Juvenile Detention Center last Friday night to throw a Fall Harvest party for the youth who were in detention. One young man wrote about the experience. He said: Thank you for taking time out of your day to come [...]
Free math/art lesson- Radial designs
By Julia LoVan This week Serve Our Youth did an hour-long workshop with the youth at Meyer Hall. This is a great lesson for high school youth (and even junior high age), as they learn principals of math and design. S.O.Y. Second chance math/art lesson RADIAL DESIGN Objective: Students create their own radial designs using [...]
Prayer Points for the 500 Wing at the Polk County Juvenile Detention Center
I wanted to highlight some prayer requests shared by Donna, a Bible discussion group leader for the 500 Wing at Polk County Juvenile Detention Center in Des Moines. I would like to ask prayer for a girl who got a Bible the week before and she has begun reading it and praying. She said things [...]
A free art lesson- Van Gogh, Impressionism, and poetry
By Julia LoVan Since I know I personally am always trying to come up with interesting and educational creative lessons for youth, I thought I’d share a lesson that combines visual art with language arts. If you try it out, let us know how it is received. Van Gogh Art Lesson Second Chance Juvenile Mentoring [...]
Do delinquent youth have heroes? Who are they? Part 2
By Julia LoVan This week we are doing a creative writing workshop with the question “Describe a hero. It can be either someone you know or simply qualities of a hero.” They are encouraged to just free write without regard to spelling or punctuation for these assignments. With some structure and guidance, youth were able [...]
Do delinquent youth have heroes? Who are they?
By Julia LoVan Today I did a creative writing workshop with one of the wings. What impressed me was we had a limited time to write, but in 10 minutes every single youth wrote a half to a full page of something from their heart. With some structure and guidance, youth were able to draw [...]
Can we inspired by delinquent youth? part 2
By Julia LoVan At the juvenile detention center, we have a weekly creative group with the youth. One of the purposes is to allow the youth to express themselves in a creative and healthy way, which also allows us to help them identify their interests in life/career, and use positive reinforcement which encourages positive behavior from [...]