It takes countless individuals to make juvenile drug court
successful and Kathy Gorrell is one of those people. Although new to her
position as Juvenile Drug Court Coordinator, Kathy Gorrell has had years of experience
as an intensive and drug court probation officer. Kathy was also in the Army
after pursuing her degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Military Science.
Kathy said, “The Army prepared me for the job, you manage people, many of them
troubled, so it's preparation. It’s many of the same people here.”
Working with children, many moments on the job have become incredibly
memorable for Kathy. Kathy specifically remembers one incident. She was a young
man’s first probation officer. She
locked him up right away after he failed a drug test. After lock up, he sent
her a text message saying, “You saved my life.” She was “floored” with how
sincere he was because the he tended to be “non-expressive”. Recently, this
same young man graduated the program. At his drug court graduation he remembered
the text message he sent her. He wrote the same thing in a card to Kathy at graduation.
She gave him a “BFF” heart necklace as a graduation present after bonding with this
boy and he asked her to take the other half. “For him to do that is huge,” said
Kathy.
Besides working with kids, Kathy works with Reconnecting
Families. Kathy said, “Reconnecting Families helps a lot. We don’t have funding
to do anything, everything we have to find.” Reconnecting Families pays for
graduation and connected the juvenile drug court with the Y as far as camps and
scholarship. “If a family can’t get the lights on, Reconnecting Families steps
in. They helped a kid get on the swim team recently who would never have been
able to do that before,” said Kathy.
On an average day, Kathy is busy assigning cases, routing
files, answering questions, supervising a caseload, sometimes making visits,
and staffing cases. “In drug court we work as a team, we talk about everything,”
said Kathy.
Working everyday to get these kids clean and sober, Kathy is
very happy with the good success of drug court. And Reconnecting Families would
like to thank Kathy for all of the amazing work she does!
Recent graduate from Drug Court, Melanie Rhodes, has become a great success and Reconnecting Families is very proud to be apart of her journey. She came into Drug Court with nothing. A few years ago she earned a scooter. More recently, Reconnecting Families helped her with a dollar matching program. She raised $500 and we helped match each dollar she saved. In the end, Melanie was able to buy this car for her and her children. We are so proud of the person Melanie has become and we look forward to all the amazing things in her future! 
