BY MIKE UNGER

MaineStay is a Maine Township sponsored youth service agency offering a variety of services to young people and their families. The group strives to help youths with their problems.

Services offered include: counseling help for youths, an outdoor adventure program, art classes, a divorced mothers' support group, parent education classes, and referral help for community residents seeking services. Anyone age 10‑17 and their families, living in Maine Township, may utilize these services. Most services to young people are free. However, there is a sliding fee scale for family counseling. The group's major goal is to bring together community resources to solve youths' problems by developing and maintaining programs.

Included in their service is the management of the Unified Delinquency Intervention Service program at MaineStay. This program gives weekly counseling for youths referred through the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Juvenile Justice System. MaineStay youth workers help youths from Maine Township who are in this program. Mr. Rick Stohle, who runs the program, also runs a highly successful informal youth counseling service at Notre Dame High School. Continued success may result in development of similar programs at other schools.

MaineStay youth advocates, Ms. JoAnn Caliendo and Mr. Rick Stohle, served as consultants to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections earlier this year. The department is establishing a wilderness camping program for youthful offenders. The program will be a stress‑challenge camping trip intended to rehabilitate the participants.

The service held a nationally recognized Parent Effectiveness Training course for parents in Maine Township. The program was designed to teach parents how to improve communications with their children. The group also dealt with avoiding parent and child power struggle, ways of getting kids to respect parent's needs, and preventing or changing unacceptable behavior.

MaineStay also ran a support group for divorced mothers. The group focuses on women's concerns dealing with the difficulties of parenting during or following the divorce process. Ms. Jackie Berner led the group in past years as well as the most recent session.

Information concerning any of the present or future programs as well as guidance counseling may be obtained by calling 296‑6644. The address is MaineStay, 2510 Dempster Suite 114, Des Plaines, Illinois 60016.