In 1979, Kendall I. Lingle, Chairman of the Fund for Advancement of Camping, called a meeting of professionals and laymen interested in out-of-door alternatives for youth-at-risk, especially those who were already or on the verge of being incarcerated by juvenile court action. The group formed the National Consortium on Alternatives for Youth-At-Risk (NCAYAR). The participants shared a common vision of the benefits which accure from the use of outdoor experiences in rehabilitation of youth at risk.

Beliefs

Their beliefs were grounded in the work of Dr. Richard Kimball at the Santa Fe Mountain Center in New Mexico, Dr. Ted Wichmann at Grassy Lake near Bloomington, and Reno Taini’s leadership as teacher and director of the Wilderness School, at Jefferson High School, Daly City, Ca. The NCAYAR gradually began to organize grass-roots interest in developing alternative programs to compete with outmoded, closed-facility incarceration. One of the NCAYAR’s primary objectives was to juvenile court judges, other court personnel, school personnel, medical and psychological professionals and parents in contact with successful programs for high-risk youth.

For ten years Ken used personal funds to continue the work of the Consortium. Upon his death on December 2, 1988 the funding ceased, but the NCAYAR continued Ken’s work with the help of dedicated volunteers and Ken’s widow, Helen, who organized the efforts. During these years NCAYAR worked on documenting success stories in juvenile justice and indexing over a thousand programs for youth at risk in an office database that has been transitioned into the Lingle Directory: Alternative Programs for Children and Youth.