For county parents hoping to improve their child’s behavior, the Fort Bend Partnership for Youth Inc.’s Parent Project offers a lifeline. March registration is open for classes, which advises parents on how to cope with children in the juvenile probation system or how to prevent their child from doing so.

The 10-week Parent Project meets once a week at 117 Legion Drive, Richmond. Topics include runaways, truancy, depression, suicide and bullying

“We deal with drugs, we deal with gang activity, we deal with [social media],” Marsha Carden, program facilitator, said of the 8-year-old project . “All the things that are going on in your child’s life now that makes it a different world.”

She recommends parents have their children’s social media password, know who their friends are and have open-ended conversations with their children when it comes to tough issues.

Parents usually come into Carden’s classes disgruntled, the facilitator said. But Carden claimed that by the end of the program, they have benefitted from the group dynamic of class discussions.

“Almost every parent will tell you they gained new knowledge and new ideas,” she said.

Aside from the Parent Project, the partnership also organizes a mentoring program with the Fort Bend County Juvenile Probation department. Volunteers at least 21 years old can sign up to mentor a child either being held at a juvenile detention center or released on probation.

Mentors should commit to an hour per week for at least a year in the program and do not need prior experience working with children and teenagers.

Sharon Allen, a Missouri City resident and retired teacher, has been a mentor for five years in Fort Bend County and 12 years in a similar Harris County program. She said she often feels like the only person visiting the children who is not an employee of the department, but Allen believes second chances are important.

“These kids that we see just need a friend,” she said.