ESP program in Tom Green County is a long-standing success
By John McGreevy, TJJD Communications
It started as a simple enough idea: to create a program for young people going through difficult times in their lives to learn ways to cope and make better decisions before heading down a more harmful or unproductive path.
In Tom Green County, the Education Supervision and Prevention program (ESP), a highly successful initiative, has been in operation since its inception in 1995.
It has left an indelible mark on the area, with young people in the region recalling how it helped them years and even decades later.
Mariah Harris, now in her 30’s, was a participant of the program almost 20 years ago and still has an appreciation for what a positive influence it had in her life. “I was going through a lot,” she said. “I was in seventh grade, I had to be the adult in my house and look after my siblings and take on things a kid shouldn’t have to do, and I was very angry.”
Back then, Probation Officer Amber Sellers learned about Harris’ situation and reached out to her.
“At first, I didn’t want to be a part of it,” Harris said. “But I went and that was a good thing. Ms. Amber was there when we needed somebody. She was there to guide me in the right direction.”
Early Success through partnering with schools
ESP was the brainchild of the late Roy K. Robb, a prominent figure in the juvenile and adult supervision and corrections fields. The program targets at-risk middle school youth (grades seventh and eighth). However, as is often the case with long-standing programs like ESP, numerous individuals deserve credit for the work accomplished over the years.
“It was Mr. Robb’s idea,” said Mark Williams, TJJD regional program administrator for the West and Panhandle regions. “We wanted more interaction with the schools and to show support for them. It was his idea to put juvenile probation officers at the middle schools because he thought that’s where they would have the most impact. And it worked, and not so much as the officers being disciplinarians but as someone to support the kids and get to know them.”
The program has operated continuously since 1995 and earned statewide recognition in 1998 when it received an award from the Texas Corrections Association for its innovative approach, said Monica Schniers, Tom Green County Chief Juvenile Probation Officer.
Mark Williams played a vital role implementing and structuring the program while he was employed by the county probation department, though Williams does his best to downplay that.
“My job was to take all of Mr. Robb’s great ideas and make them work. The program has always been a good cooperative effort, because a key part of that was always allowing the schools to have some say in the program and not us just going in and telling them how it was going to be.”
“The schools appreciated that,” Williams said, “and consequently our officers had more knowledge about the kids that were coming into our system. That was something we hadn’t predicted.”
Today, the youth groups meet three days a week for about one hour. Group meetings are usually held on school campuses, but they occasionally go to local parks for team-building activities.
They focus on better decision-making, problem-solving, self-esteem, and improving their attitudes toward their peers, teachers, and families.
The ESP officers communicate with teachers, principals, and counselors regularly. Attendance is checked randomly but specifically on scheduled group days, because this helps ESP officers know how many students to expect.
Communication with the students' guardians is essential. The program is voluntary and all parents or guardians are required to sign an ESP packet to authorize their child's participation. ESP officers also communicate with the guardians regarding a child's failure to attend a meeting (without prior notification) and/or any other identified issues.
The foundation of these group discussions and activities comes from the Rainbow Days Training - Curriculum-Based Support Groups (CBSG) Program. Tenured ESP officers have accumulated additional activities and discussions from various sources throughout the years, including guest speakers from around the community and a tour of Angelo State University.
Keeping ESP effective by accepting youth and building rapport
Referrals for the program are received via the Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) and school administration. Students who are first-time offenders, have had a Supervisory Caution, or have been placed on deferred prosecution are generally good candidates for the program and are referred by a juvenile probation officer. School staff refer students who display behavioral issues in the classroom. Such issues could include a youth being notably introverted, needing a peer support group, having been placed in foster care, or experiencing familial issues such as divorce, death, or incarceration of a family member.
“I’ve been doing this program for 23 years,” said Sellers, the juvenile probation officer who today runs the ESP program at Lone Star Middle School in San Angelo. “We work with at-risk kids the majority of the day. We’re trying to keep kids out of the juvenile system.
ESP is based on a reward system. Positive incentives (candy, tokens, etc.) are given during meetings to encourage participation. The last meeting of each week is considered a reward day for students who have not received detention or In-School Suspension and attended all scheduled ESP meetings during the week. A typical reward day involves a pizza party or other snack food and a fun activity.
“The kids have been in class all day,” Sellers said. “We want to make things fun for them.”
The ESP officers spend most of their day at their assigned campus. They communicate with the teachers and staff daily and can provide courtesy checks for the probation officers seeking updates on how a student is doing at school. They can also request and pick up school records and remind students of upcoming appointments with their probation officer.
Confidentiality is a key part of ESP. All participants are asked to keep anything said in the group to themselves, and generally, this is respected. They trust that the officers will do the same. If a student communicates a desire to harm themselves or others, the ESP officers are required to follow departmental reporting protocols.
Building rapport with the kids is important. “That takes time,” said Jonnie Benge, a juvenile probation officer who has been running the ESP program at Glenn Middle School for 24 years.
“When they first start in the program, they don’t know you too well. You let them know that you’re someone there that they can depend on. You let them know that you’re here to help them, whether it be with school or with something at home. And you’ve got to be positive with them, work through their mistakes with them and praise them when they do good things. That way if they do get in trouble, we can talk to them about it and they’re less likely to get upset because they know that we legitimately care about them.”
“We’re able to be flexible with the group,” Sellers said. “We always talk to them and to each other about finding ways to better help and communicate with the kids. Being available is important. They can contact us, their parents can contact us, and not just at the school during school hours.
“They build relationships with us and with the other group members, and they all find support in that. That keeps them coming back.”
A necessary ingredient: Positivity
Benge and Sellers both stress the benefit of confidentiality. “It’s a place where they know they can share what’s going on in their lives and not feel judged,” Benge said.
Kali Gordy participated in the program in 2018 and remains grateful for the experience. “I didn’t want to do it at first,” she said. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my behavior, I didn’t think I had any issues and didn’t need to be in that class.”
The program changed her mind after getting to know Sellers. “I’d never had anyone I felt I could talk to until then. She taught me how to look at things more positively. We still talk and still see her.”
“These kids need someone positive in their lives,” Benge said. “A lot of them only hear negativity. Kids respond better to us telling them they need to change their behavior if we give them positive feedback on the good things.”
Both officers agree that the best part of the job is working with the kids.
“They’re why we’ve both been doing this for so long,” Sellers said. “I don’t think we could be here if we didn’t have the passion for doing this and love working with the kids the way we do.”
“We love this program and love these kids,” Sellers continued. “Can it be stressful? Absolutely, because we worry about these kids – we want them to be safe, we want them to be happy. But I always say to people ‘Where else can you go where these kids are so happy to see you.”
“A lot of these kids feel like we’re the only adults they can depend on,” Benge said. “Some of their home lives are rough.”
As is often seen in the juvenile justice community, the people tasked with working with young people find their own lives changed in the process. “I’ve learned so much more compassion and patience for people,” Sellers said. “It’s helped me as a mom. It’s helped open my eyes to what teenagers can go through. It’s helped me communicate better with my own kids.”
The bonds and friendships created often continue even after the kids have left the program.
“We’ve stayed in contact with several of the kids,” Sellers said. “We’ve gone to weddings and baby showers. These kids are a big part of our lives. They’re a blessing to us. We get to see the changes in them. We get to see them flourish.”
Mariah Harris attributes the program’s success with her to the powerful connection that Amber Sellers was able to forge with her.
“There’s something about her,” Harris. “She made it so much easier to want to go to school and to learn. I enjoyed her class a lot. She helped think differently about things and look at thing in a different way. She has patience and she’s just amazing. She made me believe and understand that there were people out there who cared.”
Harris says she would urge any parent who might be uncertain about placing their child in the program to give it a try.
“My daughter is in the program right now and she just loves it,” Harris said. “I would tell any parent to allow their child to go to this program. It’s changed some kids’ lives, the same way it changed mine. Friends were made in this program.”
Going forward, and thanks to the success of the program over the years, making ESP available to more youth is in the works.
“Our goal is to expand the program to two additional junior high schools and two area DAEPs, one of which covers 12 rural school districts,” Schniers said. “The long-term objective is to continue extending the provision of school-based prevention services, life skills training, and support group programming to as many junior high and middle school campuses as possible, as well as the rural areas served by the Coke County Juvenile Probation Department.”
New Achieve program focuses on lower-risk TJJD youth, offering a structured, quicker pathway home
By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications
The profile of youth who come to TJJD is changing. The agency is serving more highly violent offenders – those referred for homicides, attempted homicides, and armed robbery -- as well as a much higher percentage of youth with serious mental health needs.
Still, some youths committed to TJJD are assessed to be low-risk or moderately low-risk to reoffend. These young people have various backgrounds and reasons for coming to a secure state facility. Some, like D.B., an 18-year-old who’s completing the program this month, never committed violent offenses, but had become a repeat offender. D.B. had failed out of a probation program in his home county and spent more of his middle teen years in local juvenile detention than at home. A judge sent him to TJJD in 2022 for D.B.’s second car theft, and a mounting record of other offenses, but none involved violence against another person.
A similarly positioned youth was nearly out of the system, having been paroled from TJJD. But he cut off his ankle monitor and went on the run. He re-thought that decision and turned himself in a few months later. The judge sent him back to TJJD to complete his term.
These youth, based on their background and risks to offend, qualify under a provision of the Texas Administrative Code -- TAC 385.45 – to be placed in a less restrictive environment.
Such youth have always been tracked at TJJD, but now they’ve got their own dorms and a highly structured new program, aptly dubbed Achieve, that aims to help them move through their requirements quickly, step down to a hallway house and head home.
The two residential halls serving this new program can house up to 32 youth. They opened at the Ron Jackson campus, in Brownwood, over the spring and summer.
“These kids qualify to be out at less restrictive facilities. But they made poor decisions that landed them in high restriction. So, we’re trying to help them remove those barriers that might keep them in longer than necessary,” said Alan Michel, Sr. Director for Operations.
The first step is to identify these “385.45” youth when they first arrive at Orientation and Assessment (O&A) at the Ron Jackson campus. There a youth’s treatment team assesses their eligibility for the program, reviews their background, and confirms their willingness to participate. As they’re evaluated for the program, through interviews with case managers and treatment professionals, O&A staff monitor them to assure they will be a good fit. One important benchmark is that the youth refrain from any aggressive behavior for 30 consecutive days while at O&A. Another is that the youth must express sincere desire to make and commit to behavioral changes.
Diversion to Achieve
Once all factors are considered and all requirements met, a youth can be accepted into the Achieve program, which diverts them from being placed into a general population setting. They will serve their time with other lower risk Achieve youth in a milieu designed for them.
“The reason for developing this program is that the agency recognizes that if you put a low-risk youth with high-risk youth, that low-risk youth will eventually become a high-risk youth,” said Ron Jackson Assistant Superintendent Robert Flores. “And so, the agency felt there was a need to create a program to help those low-risk youth stay low-risk youth and not get so lost into the system.”
“What we can see sometimes is that you have a young man who is low risk and he’s targeted by someone who has been through the system a long time. What can then happen is you have a kid who came in on a sentence of nine months but because he keeps getting Level II hearings, they have multiple assaults or fights in the facilities or they’re assaulting staff. They fall deeper into our system when they never should have in the first place.”
One Achieve youth, V.O., 17, recalled being plucked from the transport bus that would have taken him to a general population dorm at a different secure facility. He had been under assessment for the program and was assigned to Achieve.
Now headed home to East Texas after a successful placement in Achieve followed by a few weeks at Ayres Halfway House, V.O. believes that turn of events that day on the bus was fortuitous. In the Achieve dorm, he felt safe and out of the reach of any youth who might try to “get you in trouble.”
“It made my mood better,” he said, though he noted that nearly all of his cohort did have “issues” and were enrolled in anger management and substance use treatment plans. They had some work to do. Assignment to Achieve was just the beginning.
While the youths identified for this program have been assessed as “low risk” or “low-to-moderate risk” to re-offend, they’ve also been referred for criminal offenses. To move successfully through TJJD, they are expected to meet strict behavior goals, stay motivated in school, and actively engaged in their prescribed therapies.
The Achieve plan offers a great reward – a quicker stay at TJJD of four to six, maybe eight months, encompassing stepdown to a halfway house -- but it comes with high expectations.
The youth must prove they’re serious, demonstrate “zero” aggressive behavior and keep moving forward in their program, Michel said. They must commit to making improvements.
The Team Leader who pulled V.O. in for slot at Achieve had looked him in the eye as he sat on the transport bus and asked: “If I keep you here are you going to be good?”
How it works: Safety, kudos and calm
Asst. Supt. Flores, Cowboy hat shading him from the sun, swung open the door to the Achieve dorm on a sunny day in early September, releasing a gush of cool air that soothed after the heat of the 100-degree walk across campus.
The dayroom looked like many do in dorms at TJJD secure facilities, with its modular furniture and windowed offices that allow JCOs to monitor the room. There was a blue phone tucked in the corner and an array of notices tacked onto the painted cinder block walls. One simple typed page – “A Quick Peek at What’s Happening at our Halfway Houses” gave various updates and included a tally of Achieve youth who’d moved on to halfway houses. It was one of many explicit messages aimed at enticing the youth to consider their future and stick with the program.
“We’re giving them something to look forward to, to transitioning to a halfway house, and then home,” said Juanita Lopez, the team leader for the dorm.
The focus on the future and forward-looking positive messages are almost a musical patter. Down a hallway to the youths’ sleeping quarters, the doors to the rooms are covered with “attaboys” and affirmations.
One door, pretty typical, was plastered with “Woohoos!” and “Congratulations” certificates for sticking with timely morning and hygiene routines. On another door, a certificate lauded a youth for completing ART (Aggression Replacement Training).
“When they were on O&A, some of them had anger issues or lacked coping skills,” said Lopez, who’s worked as a Juvenile Correctional Office for 13 years. “Now that they’ve transferred to us, they’re working on it. They’re learning coping skills, how to handle their feelings and talk about it and not shutdown.”
“They are setting goals for the future.”
We’d caught up with Lopez at the campus gymnasium where the Achieve youths -- a collection of gangly, stocky, graceful, awkward, mop-haired adolescents - were lobbing basketballs at the net on a half court during their recreation period. It was a competitive but friendly game. Across the way, JCOs were mediating a dispute among another group of youth, though no voices were raised.
Like V.O., Lopez says that providing a feeling of safety is an overarching goal of Achieve. Once they have that, the youth become more settled, more receptive to guidance from staff and significantly more motivated.
"We had one youth who received his GED (while in the Achieve program) and his mom was impressed. She told me he had never looked to the future. Now he's considering college or the Marines," Lopez said.
Of course, all youth need that “felt safety." It may just be a tad easier to attain within the boundaries and eligibilities set for Achieve. And it's clearly part of the secret sauce.
Staff work hard, Lopez and Flores said, to help the young men in Achieve build camaraderie, encouraging them to trust their dorm mates and staff and showing them that trust is reciprocated and deserved. Grouping Achieve youth together ignites this process, but the JCOs and treatment teams must stay vigilant to cultivate and maintain the necessary positive environment.
“We shut down any bullying. And they know they cannot earn their stages that way,” Lopez says, speaking with the quiet authoritativeness of a parent discussing her own kids.
Youth at TJJD must move through four stages to advance toward discharge. Once they've attained Stage Four, they can qualify to move to a halfway house and for certain privileges, such as off-campus work programs.
To move through their stages youth must follow the rules, make amends when they don’t, stay up to speed in school and engage fully in their prescribed treatment programs. At Ron Jackson, the treatment team -- case managers and mental health professionals -- works closely with the Achieve dorm and tightly tailors the youth’s treatment programs to their risk factors, said Autumn Lord, clinical director for forensic mental health treatment services.
“We are being highly intentional with the youth by telling them about the programs and services they can receive,” Lord said. “The kids become more goal oriented . . . and more optimistic about their future.”
“We’ve seen a lot of success with the program,” she said. “We’ve had youth on O&A and they’re “385.45 eligible” to participate in the Achieve program but they’re mixed with higher risk kids. We start to see some higher risk behaviors. But when we move them to the Achieve dorm they’re better behaved and more engaged in treatment.”
Youth report what works for them: Building trust, making friends, a calm setting
For youth D.E., 18, building trust with others was the key to his full involvement and successful stay at Achieve. He transferred to Tamayo Halfway House, in Harlingen, and was on the cusp of going home in late September.
An affable youth who says he struggles with bouts of depression and bursts of anger, D.E. became friends with everyone in his Achieve dorm.
“That’s something I didn’t expect,” he said, because when he first arrived at TJJD he was sent to a general population environment and “I got in with some kids who didn’t care about anything.”
The kids in Achieve were different, more supportive, he said. “They wanted to make friends.”
“It was kind of fun. They kept us busy. We had tournaments. We played video games, basketball, and football,” he said.
The activities helped the youths build team spirit and that set everyone up for productive exchanges in group sessions where they learned to cope with their feelings of anger, he said.
“They would tell us to open up about it. It was hard for some of us to open up, but because we trusted the other kids there, we seen that we could open up and they (the staff) could help us.”
“We felt we could trust them,” he said.
D.E., who has been committed to TJJD twice for breaking and entering, viewed the staff at his Achieve dorm as highly competent, attentive and reasonably relaxed.
“It felt like they knew what their job was, and they didn’t have to worry about kids wanting to fight all the time and do (hurt) them and not care what the consequences was.”
That calmer environment enabled him to learn better emotional control and specific coping skills, like doing pushups or running, that he now uses to dissipate angry feelings. He also set goals. He wants to go to welding school after getting his high school diploma and walking across the stage, “finally doing something nobody in my family got to do.”
V.O.’s recollections mirror D.E.’s. He was grateful for the calmer setting and remembers that staff kept the youth busy all day. There were regular rewards for small wins. A quiet day with no disturbances might bring a treat of Airheads or M&Ms. A full week of good behavior at school by the entire cohort might be capped by an event with popcorn and games on the weekend.
“When I got there, I had a lot of anger,” V.O. said. But over the course of his anger management and substance abuse treatments, he adopted ways to cope, such as walking away from an aggravating situation, picturing calming imagery, or going to his room to read.
He likes adventure books, like “The Maze Runner” series. “It helps me forget I was mad,” he said. “I’m calmer too. I’m chillin’.”
V.O. also stacked up accomplishments during this period. “When I got there, I only had like 10 credits in school, and now I have like 16 or 17. And I got my GED too, that’s something I never thought I would have,” he said.
As he transitions home, he plans to continue practicing his coping skills and get a job to earn money to support his 1-year-old son. He’d like to be a house painter, like his older brother.
“It’s a good program. You get through your treatment quick,” V.O. said. “I thank Ms. Lopez for helping me get here.”
Tell her I said I made it through, I’m going to go home.”
Photos: Top: Achieve Dorm day room and poster; Middle: Notices about Halfway Houses and certificates and rewards on a room door; Achieve youth playing basketball; Bottom: Juanita Lopez talks with Asst. Supt. Robert Flores.
A new program at Gainesville State School teaches trust, responsibility and spreads yappiness to all
By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications
Gainesville State School’s newest resident bounded onto campus full of energy.
She rushed to meet everyone that first day, searched every face for responses and darted from window to window to check the view from all angles. Her fun-loving attitude seemingly offset any ill will raised by her obvious nosiness and awkward invasion of personal spaces.
Who was this young teen so excited to be signed up at at Gainesville State School?
She's called Sarang, a canine of mixed breeds, with a smooth honey and vanilla coat. Her puppy-ish charm prompted a dozen young men on the “BARK dorm” to all reach out to pet and encourage her.
Dogs provide comfort to humans and Sarang got enough strokes and cuddles that day to have reciprocally quelled the anxiety of a small town. Her mood was so bright it lit up that dayroom in the BARK dorm filled with teenagers commited to TJJD.
And that’s the plan. The BARK (Building Attachment and Resilience K-9) program aims to lift spirits and aspirations.
It’s about building mutual caring connections and giving the youth enrolled in the program an opportunity to shepherd a project that’s bigger than themselves.
“They’re basically learning the responsibility of taking care of a living being and I think that’s very helpful for them,” said Jabari Anderson, a Sr. JCO who supervises the BARK dorm where Sarang is now staying.
Sarang was the sixth of six dogs to come to the dorm, making a full house. The six dogs are being stewarded by 12 youth working in pairs, who’ve earned the privilege and been vetted for the program. The youth receive training via a weekly interactive online meeting with a trainer from a group called “Good Pup” who teaches techniques and helps them with specific questions.
Sit, stay, there's mutts more
To get ready for the BARK program, TJJD provided 25 staff members with classes last spring with trauma-informed dog trainer Roman Gottfried, owner of Roman's Holistic Dog Training. He worked with those who are supervising the canine dorm at Gainesville and another group of staff who're preparing for a similar dorm at the McLennan County campus that will launch later.
Gottfried covered how to work with dogs while being mindful of their past trauma and not engaging punitive measures. He advocates treating our furry "best friends" the same as our hooman best friends. Get to know them, he says, watch and listen and know their personality -- their activity level, distractibility, tolerance for schedule changes and sensory sensitivities -- and you will cultivate a strong relationship. Then, when it comes to problematic behaviors, a dog owner will know the underlying “why” of the behavior and be able to address it compassionately and effectively.
Gottfried's philosophy parallels in significant ways how staff work with youth at TJJD, trying to understand the needs and events in a child’s life that drive behaviors.
The BARK program initially launched at a different campus at TJJD in 2022, but moved its pilot program to Gainesville State School, which had better capacity. Gainesville facility Supt. Darryl Anderson says the program is having a positive effect that has enveloped the campus. Faces light up when the dogs are out being walked and the program serves as a strong incentive both for the youth in BARK, who want to do well, and those who aspire to join it. Youth who earn Stage Three (of four) while at Gainesville State School are eligible to participate.
The boys accepted into BARK must have good behavior records and be progressing in school. They benefit in multiple ways through their service with the dogs, learning good habits and life skills, such as practicing patience while training the dogs and the value of forming strong relationships, said Lisa Broussard, coordinator of the BARK program.
Broussard decided to partner with Dallas Pets Alive because they had a good reputation for saving shelter dogs and a special fostering program that seemed like a great fit for BARK, with dogs suitable for living with the youth.
Sarang and her four-legged dorm mates, Merlin, Atticus, Loki, Baxter, and Maverick, come from that program, which helps people who need temporary foster care for their dogs while they get medical treatment. Participants of the program are in substance abuse rehab or other medical recovery situations. They need someone to care for their animals just until they can return home.
Sarang explained a bit about this in her introduction letter: “I’m so excited to meet you! My human is trying so hard to get back on his feet, and because you welcomed me, he’s able to continue focusing on getting better!”
The serendipity is that the TJJD youth stepping into the breach – as temporary foster care providers -- also are working to turn their lives in a new direction, and many have struggled with substance abuse as well.
The temporary fostering serves a huge community need, said Dallas Pets Alive Executive Director and Founder Leslie Sans. Her organization gets multiple calls every day from people who need a temporary residence for their furry family members.
“People don’t want to let go of their best friend and shouldn’t have to let go of their best friend when they’re going through a crisis,” Sans said.
"We're all about collaboration and innovation and this (alliance with GSS) is a prime example of that," she said. "We are absolutely loving this partnership right now."
Good pups and good service
The program not only provides a service to the dogs' owners but also to the wider community by helping keep their canines out of a shelter. The BARK program adds a third virtuous aspect by providing the youthful temporary caregivers with a meaningful service opportunity.
While the dogs came from loving homes, those homes have likely experienced some upheavals, even a measure of chaos, and that means some of the animals could use a little brushing up in the command and manners department.
The boys are ready for that, thanks to those weekly virtual training sessions with Good Pup. Supported by those classes and the JCO staff who trained with Gottfried, the youth are empowered to work with the dogs each day and bit by bit improve their behavior. It’s a shared growth experience for dog and human.
Perhaps without even realizing it, the youth will learn some of the same things JCOs absorb in their TJJD preparation to work with young people. They will find out that building a trusting connection is foundational to unlocking change. They’ll see their efforts to connect with another pay off as their fur friend starts to trust and listen to them.
The hands-on aspect of the program brings the full magic. The boys keep the dogs in their rooms at night, and during the day they watch and work with them. They let the dogs out, feed, walk and teach them commands. They learn that there's a bit of poo to pick up with any job well done. They must be patient, understanding and responsible because they’re the trainers, not anyone else.
“The benefit is they have to figure out and implement and do all the training themselves, with the guidance of the virtual trainer,” said Sarah McGoldrick, vice president of animal operations for Dallas Pets Alive. “They have to learn the skills.”
Lots of smiles and tears as longtime Mart staffer Lisa McNeil retires
By John McGreevy, TJJD Communications
For Lisa McNeil, her retirement has brought a powerful mixture of emotions.
For more than 25 years, the woman nicknamed “Sunshine” by her peers and coworkers has been a part of the juvenile justice system in Texas.
“I’m absolutely excited about retirement but at the same I’m sad,” she said. “This wasn’t an easy decision for me.”
As the Texas Model FIT Leader at the McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility, McNeil built many professional relationships with fellow members of the staff and meaningful connections with the youth in their care.
She joined TJJD in 1998, back when it was still the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). She started as a juvenile corrections officer at the Marlin Orientation and Assessment Unit before moving on to the McLennan facility, in Mart.
“The job really has changed me,” she said. “I started in my twenties, I was in college, and I didn’t think I was going to be there as long as I have. I’ve always enjoyed working with kids, but it has made me grow as a person, and I’ve learned so much from the kids and learned so much from the staff.”
She says that in the days leading up to her retirement she’s been overwhelmed with the memories and experiences she’s had over her career. Some recent, some long ago, but all of them powerful. “I’ve been thinking how important it is to get some of these kids used to being held accountable,” she said. “There was a young man who had just arrived and he wasn’t used to anyone holding him accountable. He had behavioral issues and when we would try to get him to correct them, he would just stare at me and the other members of the staff.
“After some time had passed and we weren’t making any progress with the youth, we talked to him privately. I asked him if he had an issue with me holding him accountable. He just looked at me. I asked him if he knew why I was trying to get him to improve his behavior. He said he didn’t. I said it’s because I expect the best out of him and I want to see him do well.”
“'I only ask you to do what I can do',” she said. “I asked if we could start fresh, now that he knew this. He smiled–the first time we’d seen him smile–and said 'yes,' and shook my hand.”
“Oftentimes when the kids come to us, they don’t trust adults and we have to set the tone for them to trust us, we have to set the tone for how we interact with them and build rapport with them. Now when I see this youth, he’s friendly, his social skills are much better. It was always about helping him, but holding him accountable (too).”
“We have to be role models, all the time,” she said. “In some ways these kids watch us more than we watch them, and how we act around the kids and how we respond to the kids sets the tone for how they respond to us and interact with others.”
That was just one memory in what has been a flood of them lately.
When asked if she had advice to give someone starting out in this line of work, she said, “Have good intentions, do ethical work, and don’t give up on these kids. I tell them to be a good role model for the kids and learn from their mistakes and their experiences. We all learn from each other.”
“Every day is going to be a different day. Learn from your experiences and your mistakes, learn from the kids’ experiences and mistakes. Continue the course. It will get better.”
Leaving behind a career she has loved and was by all accounts a career at which she excelled is difficult, but she said it was time to move on.
McNeil is most looking forward to spending time with her family, including her grandkids, but she still sees working with young people in her future.
“That’s my passion – I feel like I’m on this Earth to work with kids. I’ll miss working with the staff but what I’ll miss most is working with the kids. I’ve seen the vulnerable sides of a lot of these kids and showing vulnerability isn’t easy for a lot of these kids unless they really connect with you.”
She has nothing but great affection for her coworkers and the people across TJJD who work with the youth every day. “There are many great people that work for this agency,” she said. “They are change agents, they are positive with those kids. There are so many people across this agency that are there to help the kids. So many people that want to see good things happen for these kids.”
“Some of these kids really do make the transformation like butterflies,” she continued. “Not every kid is going to change, but that’s the most beautiful part to see; when a kid comes in hard, broken and traumatized, and when they leave, they’ve got better personal skills. Goodness is happening in our facilities, but sometimes that can be hard to see from the outside. I get emotional when I talk about it because I still love the job.”
Focus group asks TJJD youth who've been through the Capital Offender program how to make it better
By John McGreevy, TJJD Communications
TJJD researchers conducted focus group meetings with youth at the Giddings State School this month.
The purpose was to get feedback from youths who had completed the therapeutic Capital and Serious Violent Offender Group program, also known as COG. COG is a series of therapy sessions in which therapists and youth meet in a group over several months. The goal is to help the youth better understand how the events of their life relate to how they came to be incarcerated -- n effect, to see how their “life story” resulted in their “crime story,” as it’s called in the sessions. COG is run by treatment professionals who see the youth regularly.
“The capital offender program has been around since 1988,” said Dr. Evan Norton, TJJD Sr. Director of Integrated Treatment and Intervention Services. “It was designed by psychologists to look at how a kid’s life story impacts their crime story. It works on identifying unmet needs that create future offending cycles. The key to this is incorporating lived experience. Getting the youths’ voice in our treatment program is very important.”
“The model, while it gets updated over time to fit the times, remains largely unchanged in its analysis and effectiveness,” Norton said. “The data supports that it’s a helpful program.”
Still, TJJD treatment professionals want to make sure that “all elements of the program are trauma-informed and we’re doing the best we can with credible messengers and lived experience,” Norton said.
A “credible messenger” is someone who has been incarcerated. Their insight from their experiences can help keep the program up to date.
That’s where the focus groups come in. The research team wanted to get the youths’ viewpoints to help treatment staff make the COG program as effective as possible and be informed by the youths’ experiences.
Spencer Washington, Clinical Director for Forensic Mental Health Services at Giddings State School oversaw the focus group and Alejandro Ramirez-Cano, a research specialist with the treatment team, and Claire Boudrot, a research specialist with the research team, conducted it.
“We’re looking to continue to modernize the program with the latest research available,” Norton said. “A big piece of taking this to the next level is ensuring that people with lived experience and youth voice is incorporated. That’s why we hold focus groups to hear directly from the youth. How was this helpful? What do they need/ How can this be better?”
“I think it’s so important and valuable to be getting honest feedback from the youth,” Boudrot said. “We ask if they’re getting what they think they need to get out of COG. We want to do everything we can to make sure the main points of COG are being reached and making sure everything is being directly communicated.”
“Getting youth voices in our treatment program is very important,” Norton said.
“The youth are often eager to talk, but understandably have difficulty in knowing who they can trust,” said Ramirez-Cano. During the focus group at Giddings, two of the youth said there were only a small number of the staff they trusted for fear that telling their story would lead to future reprisals.
“By the time the youth have completed the program, they tend to be more open when it comes to sharing their experiences and opinions,” Ramirez-Cano said. “This has given the staff valuable insight for updating the program as well as finding better ways to run the focus groups.”
“In preparation for the focus group, I have a script that I’ll stick to, but there will be questions that present themselves along the way,” Ramirez-Cano continued. “I think the things they said that I could relate to personally surprised me. One youth told me we don’t ask the right questions. That stuck with me. So, we dig deeper, we ask them what they think we should be asking them.”
The list of youth selected to participate in these focus groups included those who have completed COG, are enrolled in COG, or are out on parole. The staff stresses the importance of getting as many different perspectives and points of view as they can.
One youth in the focus group said he found it difficult to open up to someone who wouldn’t be sharing anything from their own life in return. The other youths agreed with this sentiment. Washington explained to the group that while there were ethical and professional reasons for therapists not sharing their life stories, keeping the focus on the youth during their session was the foremost consideration.
The focus group gives the youth the chance to share what they liked and didn’t like about the program “It was great to learn where the disconnectbetween the youth and the therapists was on some elements,” Boudrot said. “Mr. Washington was reminding us ‘This is how this was supposed to go, but the youth weren’t seeing it that way’, and that’s exactly what we need to be getting at.”
Overall, the staff seemed encouraged by the results of the focus group. “I thought it went great,” Ramirez-Cano said.
The process continues and the data and feedback from these focus groups will help the staff move forward with refinements to the COG program.
“Initially, a lot of these kids are scared to get into (COG) therapy,” Norton said. “They’re scared to get into treatment. And it’s incredible to see the transformation over the six to nine months they’re in this program. They are more confident, more resilient, they have better skills. They end up being mentors on the facility a lot of the time and helping their peers see that engaging in therapy is a good thing.”