The Montana Judicial System has awarded the 2022 Employee Recognition Award to Kindra Lima-Hageness, the Chief Juvenile Probation Officer for the 19th Judicial District.

The long-time Libby resident was honored for her leadership in her field and recognized as an asset to Lincoln County, according to Lincoln County District Court Judge Matt Cuffe.

Lima-Hageness is originally from Wolford, a small North Dakota town where she was one of seven graduates in her high school class.

Since then, Lima-Hageness has spent 27 years working in the juvenile probation system and is one of three in the Montana Judicial branch to be awarded for 2022.

Lima-Hageness graduated with an education degree from Dickinson State University. When she moved to Libby in 1992, she worked with at-risk-kids as an academic liaison before working for Families in Partnership. There, she would enter the homes of kids who may be on the verge of being placed into juvenile probation in both Libby and Eureka.

“Teenagers on the cusp of being placed out of their home,” Lima-Hageness said.

Shortly after being hired for a deputy probation officer job Lima-Hageness became chief. After 27 years on the job she and her co-workers have become close. The last person she hired was 20 years ago.

“We’re pretty much a family here,” Lima-Hageness said.

In the juvenile system, most kids never see a judge, Lima-Hageness said. Kids come in informally and receive some consequences and competencies.

“I think that as probation officers we wear many, many hats. I think we wear parent hats at times, we wear teachers, we wear probation, we wear councilors,” Lima-Hageness said. “We just wear a lot of hats.”

Probation officers will talk to kids and families, and find out what's going to work for them in their environments, either at home or at school, Lima-Hageness said.

“We do see a lot of success, the majority of the kids we see are just good kids that made bad decisions,” Lima-Hageness said. “It's probably 5-10% of the kids we spend most of our time on.”

The department works with the school on some kids who come in after being kicked out. Sometimes for school children the easiest thing to do is act up, and subsequently they are often kicked out, Lima-Hageness said.

“The trend we’re seeing is not so much in the criminal aspect, but more mental health,” Lima-Hageness said. “We spend a lot of time trying to figure out mental health issues.”

Probation officers will work with law enforcement, the county attorney's office and the department of family services.

“It's amazing how many kids come back. Whether it be kids we saw just short term or some of our long term kids. They come back from college, get a job or get married. They want us to meet their spouse, they want us to know how they're doing,” Lima-Hageness said.

Lima-Hageness is a mother herself, her three daughters played softball, and the youngest daughter just graduated after having played softball in college.

“I’m officially done with softball now, I’m moving on to my grandsons’ soccer and wrestling and those things,” she said.

Lima-Hageness also spends her time kayaking or with family and friends. In general Lima-Hageness tries to follow a simple motto.

“If you won't do it to your kid, you shouldn't do it to someone else’s kid,” Lima-Hageness said.