On April 15, 2011 Incarcerated Youth Tutorial Project (IYTP) admin met with leaders of the Los Angeles CountyProbation Department. In this meeting, Los Angeles Probation Department granted IYTP several new privileges. These privileges are listed below:
1. LA County Probation Department will allow IYTP volunteers under the age of 21 to attend a Juvenile Facility site.
2. The background checking process for every new volunteer will be changed from 3 months to 1 month. IYTP will have its own liaison who will ensure that our applications have priority when been filed.
3. IYTP can attend any site of their choice in LA County and the LA County Probation Department will help IYTP attend that site.
4. IYTP volunteers will get their own badges when attending site to distinguish them from other students.
IYTP volunteers tutor juvenile inmates that usually fall under the 16-19 years age group. Volunteers provide tutoring services in Math and English in order to help inmates get their GED.
IYTP was founded in 1988 and was MSA UCLA’s first project. However, this project also has had a long history of inconsistent sites due to red tape that disabled volunteers to attend site. The project was feared to be shutdown in the future if the situation remained the same.
IYTP admin members are hopeful that the changes listed above can resolve these problems. These new changes will allow IYTP to have a consistent site where members can develop a long term relationship with site leaders. This will hopefully allow a larger number of UCLA students to attend site and increase volunteers.