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THE KENTUCKY YOUTH CONFERENCE
The Kentucky Youth Conference was begun in 1967 by former
Attorney General Robert Matthews to seek among the young people of
Kentucky the leadership necessary to curb Kentucky's juvenile delin-
quency problem. In 1966 Kentucky got, for the first time, a roughly
accurate look at its juvenile delinquency problem. In that year, the
Attorney General's Office, in cooperation with the Department of
Child Welfare, developed a voluntary and uniform juvenile offense
reporting system. They found the over-all picture bleak, showing
little end in sight to the rising tide of juvenile crime in the state
of Kentucky.
The Kentucky Youth Conference was designed to do something
about this problem. It is based on the theory that young people, if
given the opportunity, can themselves develop solutions to the problem
of juvenile delinquency; that their energy, insight, and imagination can-
not be overlooked; and that they should seize the leadership in dealing
with this problem.
These concepts of the Conference became a reality in August
of 1967 and again in August of 1968 when more than 800 high school
age people from all parts of Kentucky gathered at Eastern Kentucky
University in Richmond to ask themselves what they could do about
juvenile crime in their local communities. Their discussions,
stimulated by excellent speakers, programs, and the most compre-
hensive data on juvenile crime available, sparked many ideas for
local projects. Youth Conference delegates have organized a teen
jury in Henderson; a three-county Central Teen Council in northern
Kentucky involving county judges and police judges; a youth employ-
ment service in Versailles which, in its first year of operation,
found jobs for some eighty young people in the area; and a Boyd
County program which has involved pre-teen children of indigent
parents in the area in picnics and horseback riding, Many such
programs throughout the Commonwealth have met with such great
success, unprecedented community interest and widespread support
that the annual Conference will now remain a permanent institution
in Kentucky.
Delegates to the Conference have been sponsored in the past by
more than twenty thousand Kentuckians representing corporations, labor
unions, civic clubs, schools, and church organizations. These groups,
along with various other foundations and youth organizations interested
in the development of Kentucky youth and the prevention of juvenile de-
linquency, lend financial support to the Conference efforts. The Ken-
tucky Youth Conference is now sponsored by the privately financed,
non-profit Kentucky Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Youth Devel-
opment Foundation of Louisville, Kentucky and has begun a Sustaining
Member Program intended to broaden its financial base, while giving
Kentuckians a chance to participate in its efforts in an important and
essential way.
Throughout the entire state businesses, organizations and
individuals recognize and support the tremendous potential of the
Kentucky Youth Conference, and of Kentucky young people, to mobi-
lize the resources of the state in effective combat against juvenile
delinquency and to explore new areas of constructive citizenship
for the young.