BY YUDY PINEIRO

ypineiro@MiamiHerald.com

Kendall homeowner Raysa Rodriguez recently took in a 15-year-old girl with a shaky past. She did not adopt the girl, who has bounced in and out of juvenile detention on battery charges and probation violations, and she is not her foster parent.

Rather, Rodriguez will house the girl for a year as part of a new program that aims to save troubled youths from a life of delinquency by placing them in stable homes.

As a counselor for juvenile delinquents at the alternative Bay Point Schools in Cutler Bay, Rodriguez said it was only natural for her to do something to help.

''I wanted to impact a youth's life,'' she said.

Using a proven behavioral system, host parents and a group of clinical therapists encourage teenagers with serious delinquency or behavioral problems to develop academic skills and positive work habits, helping them become model citizens.

A teenager's legal guardian is simultaneously taught more effective parenting skills.

Jonelle K. Dougery, a clinical program supervisor at Liberty Resources, which started the Community-Based Residential Alternative Program, said there are two aims.

''To create opportunities for youth to live successfully in a family, while preparing their parent to provide them with effective parenting,'' Dougery said, adding the program is modeled after the Oregon-based Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care Program.

Liberty Resources needs more volunteer parents to host children for up to a year at an $18,000 yearly stipend. They just opened the first office in West Kendall this spring at 13016 SW 120th St.

This is the only program of its kind in the state.

Gerard Bouwman, president of Oregon-based TFC Consultants, whose purpose is to help implement the model in other cities, said research has proven the program is effective.

''We see significant reductions in contact with authorities subsequent to treatment, a lot less delinquency, a lot less behavior problems, and also are able to function in family settings,'' Bouwman said.

The program is voluntary, but the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice must first refer the teenager. Children must be between 14 and 17 years old, have prior treatment or placement, serious and chronic delinquent behavior, and family problems.

''They're coming to us if they get a new misdemeanor charge or don't abide by conditional release by missing curfew or skipping school, and are at risk of being committed again,'' Dougery said.

How does the program work? Children earn points as they exhibit appropriate behavior, such as getting up on time in the morning and doing extra chores.

''It's very encouraging as opposed to only pointing out that they did something wrong,'' Dougery said.

The parents keep tabs on the daily activities of the teen by giving them a card -- like a progress report -- which they have to take daily to school, or any after-school job in which teachers and employers have to sign off on the time the teen gets there and leaves.

Once a week, the child sees an individual therapist.

'They'll role-play situations like say over the week the teenager got into a fight with the professional parent, the therapist would say ` How could you have handled that differently? Let's talk about it,' '' Dougery said.

A skills trainer is also assigned to go out with the children into the community and help them get involved, whether through sports or just interacting with others.

''If we're out in the community and the youth doesn't want to order food, we do it, and through that they learn to model appropriate behaviour,'' Dougery said.

A family therapist is assigned to the after-care guardian, or the person who will care for the child after the treatment period is over.

''They go into the home and work with the parents on what were the challenges how can you do that differently, and teaching them more practical parenting skills because whatever they were doing obviously wasn't working,'' Dougery said.

Host families receive a daily phone call, a two-day training and certification course in the behavioral program, and 24-hour, seven-days-a-week on-call support.

The program has room for 10 kids at the time, and there are already six referrals, and about six families are undergoing the process to get certified with the state.

For more information, call Jonelle Dougery at 305-232-8126.