The Florida legislature just cut our Prodigy program by 80%, leaving thousands of youth and their families without a proven prevention program and services, like tutoring and family support.  

Prodigy has been funded consistently as a Juvenile Justice Prevention and Intervention program for almost 20 years and covers about 3500 youth every year in high risk zip codes in Pasco, Pinellas , Polk, Hillsborough and Manatee counties.  

The implications are very real. For example, in Hillsborough county, The Prodigy program at FICS Multicultural Family Center will have to close. We serve 400+ at-risk youth every year. That's 400 kids and their families without services as of July 1, 2017, right in the middle of the summer when data suggests youth are most at risk.

To add insult to injury: This bizarre decision was made during budget talks and the process was not transparent until the final budget was sent to the Governor this Friday 5/5/17.

Help us restore funding by calling on the Governor and Attorney General to move towards a proven solution (Prodigy) instead of a proven failure (Juvenile Detention).

The rationale for our program is ROI -return on investment-simple really.  Prodigy costs only $2000/youth per year while the cost of juvenile detention in Florida is over $60,000/year AND juvenile detention has been found to increase -not decrease - repeated juvenile delinquency.

Thanks to Marcus Klebe who made a short video:

https://www.facebook.com/1085226892/videos/10212184436261192

Thank you for standing with us!