Meet Lionel Scott

Lionel Scott currently serves as the Probation Manager and therapeutic dog handler for the Coconino County Juvenile Court Services. He is currently 15 years into his career, and his love for serving started in college. He attended Northern Arizona University, where he played football and found his passion for helping others as well as the youth. 

After he graduated, he looked back on who influenced him the most in life, and it was his coaches. He got a good opportunity to help run a Flag Football league as well as coaching a team. Then he met a man by the name of David Howard, who changed his life forever when he told him to apply at the court to become a Detention Officer. 

In 2010, Lionel started as a Youth Care Worker for the court. He worked as a YCW II for a couple of months and was promoted to a YCW III (Lead), which was a shift expert and was able to mentor kids and staff. He worked as a YCW III for about three years and was promoted to a YWCV, where he had the opportunity to start a new program (Furlough). This program allowed staff to take detained youth into the community and helped build life skills such as: getting to school, looking for jobs, community activities, and independent living. The furlough program evolved into more of a probation role. 

Lionel was later promoted to Juvenile Intense Probation Officer (JIPS), where he was able to serve kids with the highest needs in our department. We worked as a team to ensure that youth had as many “WRAP'' around services as needed. While serving as the JIPS officer Lionel was promoted to Probation Supervisor but still maintained his caseload while leading other staff members. He also became certified to serve as a Defensive Tactics Instructor, Motivational Interviewing Trainer, and Trauma Care Trainer. 

In 2022, Lionel was introduced to Georgetown’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform’s Equity in Juvenile Legal Systems certificate program which profoundly changed the way in which he saw himself and those he served in the legal system. 

Lionel is committed to advocating for those youth whose voices are not represented in the systems that ultimately shape and color their adolescence.