Skipworth attempts to aid troubled kids before they become hard-core By Michael Schmieman Emerald Contributor At a time when many parents, judges and police officers are convinced that most of Lane County's youths are doomed to violent lives full of hard drugs and social diseases, a man responsible for providing shelter for the most hostile of these children says today's kids are not so bad. ‘‘This is not a district that is loaded with hard-core delin quents,” said Frank Mills, superintendent of Skipworth Juvenile Home. "These kids are definitely salvageable. There is absolutely no question about the fact that we are turning around an awful lot of kids.” The primary function of the county's juvenile detention center located at 2411 Centen nial Ulvd. is to provide tem porary care for children awaiting trial and/or placement in foster homes. Skipworth's responsibilities include protecting the (.(im munity from the destructive behavior of malicious youths, providing an environment con ducive to normal development, and assuring immediate ac cessibility of those children to the juvenile court, which is in the same building. According to Mills, most "students,” the term he prefers, return home under some type of supervision provided by local or state agencies such as the Children's Services Division. Those convicted of serious crimes and who continue to have discipline problems are sent to state training school. Others, who have no suitable home to return to, are placed in group homes often located on farms or ranches. Some end up in the state mental hospital in Salem. Mills said children with a history of starting fires are par ticularly difficult to place. Although the average length of detention is 15 days, Mills explained this figure is misleading because it includes children who are held only a matter of hours before being released to their parents, and others who are permitted to serve sentences by checking themselves in on consecutive weekends. Mills said it is not uncommon for a youth to spend two or three months at the facility. After running away from home several times and violating the conditions of his probation on a shoplifting charge Shan Cuellar, 14, wound up spending eight months in the detention center. “A lot of kids will say they have been in Skipworth when they really haven’t,” Cuellar said. "But I can tell when they are lying because they talk about what a tough place it is. flCDRN