Youth counselors get first look at Southeast Regional Care Center for Youth

Milwaukee, Wis. – As construction crews put the final touches on the Southeast Regional Care Center for Youth, 33 of the center’s first employees are graduating from the Department of Corrections’ (DOC’s) training academy today.

The Milwaukee center, 7930 W. Clinton Ave., is the first of a new kind of juvenile corrections facility for DOC. With room for 32 male youth, the facility is designed to keep youth closer to their families and communities.

“This new juvenile corrections facility is really designed to integrate family and community resources in a safe way,” DOC Secretary Jared Hoy said. “Youth residing at the facility will likely be from the Milwaukee area so they will have family and community support nearby to help them.”

Many of the youth DOC serves come from southern Wisconsin but DOC’s main secure juvenile facility is Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake schools near Wausau.

Another important factor is that the staff working at the facility will also be part of the same Milwaukee area community.

Many staff members grew up in the same neighborhoods and navigated the same challenges as the youth they’ll be caring for, said Tyrelle Hatcher, a Milwaukee native and emergency medical technician who is training to be a youth counselor.

“I came from a troubled neighborhood,” said Hatcher, who has family members who are incarcerated. “I saw that side. I want to tell them there’s a different way.”

Maurice Newton Jr., a Milwaukee County crisis stabilization worker, is training to be an advanced youth counselor.

Also from the Milwaukee area, Newton said he wants to be a role model for the youth at the facility. He grew up without his father, who is incarcerated, and said that without his mother and strong school support he could have found himself in the same situation as the youth he’ll be working with.

Now, Newton said, he wants to be the support that helps youth and families thrive in the community. He was part of the first group of employees to tour the new facility and said he was impressed by the resources built-in, including an onsite barbershop, dental and optometry services.

“It doesn’t feel like a detention center,” Newton said. “It feels like home.”

The Milwaukee facility is the first of three juvenile facilities planned to replace Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake schools. The state budget included $78.4 million for Milwaukee facility’s construction. Plans call for construction to be completed in September with the facility opening to youth this fall.

Meanwhile, construction of a second secure juvenile correctional facility is set to begin later this year in Dane County. The facility will be built in Oregon on state-owned property near Oakhill Correctional Institution and will have space for 32 boys and eight girls.

More details on DOC’s juvenile facilities can be found here.