A Delaware County teenager sat in a drumming circle and was offered the chance to relieve his stress and take his aggression out on the instrument by striking it.
He digressed.
“I’d probably break the drums,” he said.
Warren Hyer, executive director of the Central Ohio Symphony, directs a program in which music is used therapeutically to help offenders and other troubled participants in a way that the justice system perhaps cannot.
“(The participant) had difficulties at home, particularly with his father,” Hyer said of the boy who graduated from the program four months ago. “The stuff he used to talk about was just awful. ... Often what the drums do is allow them to communicate in a specific type of way.”
To encourage courts in Ohio’s other counties to consider sending offenders to similar therapies, representatives from the programs pitched their practices at the Ohio Specialized Dockets Practitioner Network’s 10th annual conference in November.
Members of the network include judges, magistrates, probation officers and others. Together, they considered these alternative practices at the largest conference turnout in the last decade.
There were about “450 participants who work in specialized dockets, including mental health, drug, OVI ... and domestic violence courts,” according to a news release published in Court News Ohio.
“Specialized Dockets is a mandated court program that holds participants accountable for what they did in the criminal justice system,” said Kevin Lottes, program coordinator for the Specialized Dockets section. “We get them help so they don’t reoffend.”
The practices pitched at the conference not only involve drumming circles, but horses as well.
“Horses are very much like people,” said Kirsten Stumpo, instructor for The Equine Component in Marion County. “Clients are able to relate to horses.”
She instructs clients on a retired horse race facility in which the animals are not overly trained and enjoy being around people.
Stumpo’s equine therapy does not involve horseback riding; instead, they offer simple situations to help clients overcome their personal challenges, such as family problems.
Both practices are funded by grants in their respective counties, which means there is no cost to the court directly.
Hyer and Stumpo both said that their programs are inexpensive and cheaper than putting an offender in jail. They are also fairly short programs.
The drumming circles usually take 12 to 18 months to complete for adults and about nine months for youth, while equine therapy, a seasonal service, takes approximately six months.
Whether or not an offender would be admitted into an alternative therapy program would be determined by the court.
Sheryl Brownlee, executive assistant for Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn, said that neither therapies are currently offered in the area, and Blackburn’s office has not sent anyone to a similar program at this time.
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