'Change begins today': Volusia resource center opens to prevent youth from a life of crime (2024)

From inside a holding cell, youth detained at the new Volusia Family Resource Center west of Daytona Beach can read the following message on a wall: “The opportunity to turn your life around begins now!”

Beneath the message is the signature of Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chitwood who spoke at the center's grand openingThursday at 3747 W. International Speedway Blvd.

“When these young kids come through the door and they made a mistake, we want to be able to provide them with change,” Chitwood said. “When you look inside the holding cell, there is a motto above it, when those kids are in there, they can look up: Change begins today. Your opportunity to change your life is today with everybody that we have in this building.”

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The Volusia County Council approved the project with $5.4 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan.

The resource center brings together providersto screen troubled youth and guide them away frombehaviors and choices that could ultimately lead them to state prison.

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, the Children’s Home Society of Florida andVolusia County Schools are partnering with the Volusia County Sheriff's Office at the center. Halifax Behavioral Serviceswill have staff there as well in the near future.

The center hasoffices for the different organizations, as well asa conference room and a reception area. The holding area has a place to take mugshots of youth who arearrested. There are two holding cells, one for males and one for females. Each cell can hold up to seven people.

“The resource center is here not only for kids that get arrested, (but) to try to break that cycle as we have every provider in there to screen kids for mental health issues, for substance abuse issues,” Chitwood said.

Services aren't limited to children who get arrested.

Chitwood said the center is also available to assistfamilies who see their children"starting to make that turn toward delinquency, they are using drugs, they are hanging with the wrong crowd."

The center already received its first youthfrom Flagler County on Wednesday.

A better way for Volusia County youth

Among the people Chitwood credited for the center’s opening was State Sen. Tom Wright, a New Smyrna Beach Republican. The sheriff said Wright was able to get everyone in the same room to make the center a reality, saying it was “like herding cats.”

Wright recalleda conversation he had with Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, who told him that when she was a criminal judge, she saw the same faces she had seen as a juvenile judge.

“This is going to help getting our youth on the right track and to realize that there is a better way of life than going down that wrong path,” Wright said.

Wright said he did not blame the families, many of which are single-parent households.

“And she’s working two jobs just trying to hold it all together,” Wright said. “So she doesn’t have the opportunity to share her religious beliefs, her Christian beliefs, her morals and these kids get on the wrong track.”

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More youths using guns

Seventh Circuit State Attorney R.J. Larizza repeated an earlier comment from Chitwood that more young people were usingguns. He said a press conference about gun violence, which is happening throughout the areaand the state,took place Wednesday in DeLand.

“And the folks that are holding those guns and shooting them are getting younger and younger and what we got to try to do, folks, is attack this problem from both ends,” Larizza said. “We got to find a way to reach our kids, our community’s kids, our neighbor’s kids, our kids before they put a gun in their hands because when they do it’s too late. It’s over.”

Carla Quann, the director of Juvenile Services for the Sheriff’s Office, said she has worked with Chitwood since he was police chief in Daytona Beach and they started working on a resource center in 2011. When the county said they had a building, the location, which used to house the United Way,was converted into the resource center in 90 days, Quann said, adding the county had been “wonderful.”

“I just want to say thank you to everyone that helped make this vision possible,” Quann said.

Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Eric Hall also spoke at the grand opening. When asked later what made this center different from 16 other such centersacross the state, he said it was the vision and the partners.

“I think one of the biggest differences you see here is that this is one that’s actually coming from the vision of the sheriff himself. … I think the difference here is a lot of local leadership that’s making this happen and partners that have come to the table at the right time to make this vision a reality,” Hall said.

When Chitwood addressed the crowd, hementioned a 12-year-old boyand a 14-year-old girlwho ran away from the Florida United Methodist Children Home on June 1, 2021, and got into a shootout with deputies, according to charging affidavits. Both were arrested and the girl was wounded.

Chitwood said the center could have helped keep thosetwo children away from a path that led to attempted murder charges. He said with the different resources under one roof at the center, the children could be better matched with the services and structure that they needed.

Said Chitwood: “We could be a model here to make sure that maybe something like that never happens again.”

People can call the Family Resource Center at 386-254-1512.