Spotlight On: Ruben Trevino of Tamayo Halfway House
- Written by Barbara Kessler
By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications
The minute Ruben Trevino picks up the phone, we are fast into a discussion about a mutually beneficial relationship with a community group that is helping the youth at Tamayo Halfway House.
It’s mid-June, the Texas heat is pressing hard on the Rio Grande Valley and Trevino has arranged for the young men at Tamayo who perform community service at the Elks Lodge in Harlingen to get privileges to the lodge pool. They’ll be taking a dip that morning.
“During the day there’s not so much going on (at the lodge), so the boys can go in the morning. That way the pool is ours, unless there are a lot of guests, then we excuse ourselves and move on,” Trevino explained.
This pact with the Elks is no surprise. This is Trevino’s wheelhouse. He’s the man with the community connections. Over his 26 years with the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, most of them at Tamayo House in Harlingen, he has worked out dozens of handshake deals that take the youth on valuable community service outings. They’ve have packed goods for the local food pantry, set up several 5K benefit races, cleaned up local parks and helped at charity dinners. Once upon a time, a corps of Tamayo teens hefted diapers and water bottles into trucks bound for Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.
Trevino simply epitomizes “service to others,” said Tamayo Supt. Eduardo Garza. When he’s not helping youths he assists staff with finding mechanics or medical services.
Garza says the staff and students at Tamayo house have a nickname for him: “The Mayor of Harlingen.”
As Tamayo’s Human Services Specialist, Trevino also prepares the youth for going back home by teaching them life skills, everything from how to cook a tender brisket to managing one’s bank account. Every week he walks the youth through two of a set of 10 life skills modules. And whenever needed, he helps the teens put those lessons into play – overseeing as they fill out college financial aid forms or driving them to get their state IDs or apply for an apartment.
Trevino, though, is quick to quash any notion that he’s something special. He attributes the smooth operations at Tamayo to strong teamwork by dedicated JCOs and staff at the Harlingen halfway house.
Tamayo House boasts an impressive tenured staff. Ten Tamayo employees have been with TJJD for more than 15 years, representing 336 years of experience working with justice-involved youth. These staffers also train youth in skills and oversee countless teaching moments.
The stories they could tell. Trevino’s personal one includes a struggle as a young adult to help his first-born son overcome special needs and recover from several surgeries to repair a devastating congenital medical condition. That boy is now a healthy 31-year-old who coaches and teaches in a small Texas town. He and his younger brother, a police investigator, both graduated from UT San Antonio, which made their parents, Ruben and Soyla, super proud.
Those early challenges as a young dad led Ruben Trevino to make a big pivot. He left a job at H-E-B to find what turned out to be a fulfilling career with TJJD.
It wasn’t love at first sight when he joined the Evins campus in 1997 as a recreation specialist. There were difficult days as he adjusted to working in corrections. But after he and other employees started the Diamondbacks baseball team for the youth at Evins, he settled into a groove. The team competed in the community in Edinburg and Trevino, who’d already clocked years as a coach, saw how it pumped up the Evins boys’ self-esteem.
“I felt it was my calling and believe it or not I spoke to my pastor. I said, ‘Father Mack, what do you see me doing?’ He said, ‘Ruben, this is what I see you doing’.”
Inspired, Trevino stayed on and joined Tamayo House in 1999 to take the human services job (then with a different title), so he could continue community-related work.
Shepherding youth is now in his blood. Our conversation, intended to be about him, keeps veering back to the day’s activities for the youth.
“Later this evening we’re taking them to the park, and they’ll play basketball and flag football and volleyball, and we do dodgeball,” he says. “But I always remind them, the staff, to stop every 15 minutes and get a nice cool drink of water, to hydrate themselves out there.”
Hydration is on Trevino’s mind because the boys are out a lot -- performing collectively an average of more than 400 hours of community service in a month -- and will be out again the next day, filling food bags at the Harlingen Food Pantry.
At the pantry he sees how they blossom under the encouragement of the adult volunteers.
“They feel that pride,” he says. “‘I did something for someone today.’”
Seeing that internal shift in the youth is what brings Trevino to work every day and why at 58 he has no plans to retire, although he does greatly enjoy his days off, immersed in family activities. He and his wife, married for 34 years, love to go dancing, he says, and they’ve got two grandbabies on which to dote.
Back at work, Tamayo offers him a place where he can make a difference. The work is not bump free. There are recalcitrant youth and challenging moments. But he believes the team effort by experienced staff well-versed in Texas Model and TBRI (Trust-based Relational Intervention) techniques, creates an environment that’s truly rehabilitative.
“It’s a good, good thing that a lot of our members are doing here at TJJD,” he says. “From Shandra Carter on down to the staff here. I’ve had several visitors come by and they can just feel the safety and security.”
(Photos: Top, Ruben Trevino; Tamayo HWH youth at the pool; Ruben, center, with his sons, daughters-in-law, wife and first grandchild.)
Celebrating our staff on National Correctional Officers Week
- Written by Barbara Kessler
This National Correctional Officers Week we hope everyone enjoyed the lunches, tchotchkes, reusable water bottles, treats and general celebrations that Superintendents and many others put together to honor staff this week.
You do the uplifting but challenging hands-on work of helping young people reform and build a better future. And you deserve this moment.
As TJJD Executive Director Shandra Carter wrote to staff this week: "Your continued hard work enabled us to overcome significant challenges since last May. Each of you has helped build a strong foundation for success, and it is only because your dedication that we are poised to receive the investments and support vital to fully fulfill our mission. Looking forward, we have a hopeful and optimistic future. Your diligent efforts made this future a reality and have not gone unnoticed."
In short, thank you! Now please enjoy these photos of JCOs at various campuses and events from the week.
Patty Garza has one of the 'best jobs' at TJJD coordinating interns, volunteers and parole programs for the South Region
- Written by Barbara Kessler
By John McGreevy, TJJD Communications
Ayres House youth listen to and feel the sound of calm during a 'sound bath'
- Written by Barbara Kessler
By John McGreevy, TJJD Communications
The staff and volunteers at our facilities are always looking for new ways to help the youth in our care learn to regulate their emotions. Recently, the youth and staff at TJJD’s Ayres Halfway House, in San Antonio, took part in a sound healing meditation session, led by Jessica Neideffer and her very special assistant, a three and a half-pound dog named Lido.
Neideffer described the session as a process that at a basic level allows the participants to release feelings of stress, anxiety, and physical pain from their bodies.
“I work with sound and vibration to create frequencies to allow the mind to enter deeper brainwave states in order to experience true rest,” she said. “We create a safe space for participants to tune into their self in a new and different way and let go of the outside world. We return our focus inward and listen to the messages that the body is giving us. The sessions provide the opportunity to be aware of the internal dialogue in our mind and give us the chance to change it if we find the voices in our head to be unaligned with how we truly feel. We’re seeking a complete reset of the nervous system and energy of the body and mind.”
Neideffer was looking to expand where she practices her craft and reached out to TJJD’s Executive Director Shandra Carter, who connected her with Youth Experience Leader Elaine Windberg. Windberg put her in touch with Volunteer Services Coordinator Patty Garza with South District and Ayres House. “Patty already knew about sound healing so she was very excited about doing this with the kids,” Neideffer said.
Neideffer knew that the youth and perhaps even members of the staff at Ayres House might be wary of trying something so unusual to most of them. “Sometimes people are very skeptical about it because it doesn’t really have the credit behind it yet from some parts of the medical world," she said. “In fact, we’ve been using sound and vibrational therapy for many years. When we do ultrasounds, we’re using ultrasonic waves to see inside the body.”
Neideffer has worked with high school youth before and she understood the importance of shaping the session for Ayres House. “Every time I go to work with a group, I try to tap into what the lesson or the message is for that day,” she said. “I bring whichever instruments feel best for that group.”
“I keep things light, keep things humorous and I start to play one of the instruments while I’m talking just to get them interested and curious about the sound. It’s easy to get their attention once I start playing one of the instruments. As we connect, I tell a story. Then I get them to share with me what they’re feeling as they’re experiencing the sound, so it’s interactive and gets them participating in the experience, in their healing or self-awareness process.”
It certainly didn’t hurt to have Lido along to get the kids interested.
“Lido started accompanying me to different schools that I went to,” Neideffer said. “The kids just love him, he’s got this very big presence to him, for a three and a half pound chihuahua. When we walked through the door at Ayres House, he just ran in, with this sense of ‘I’m going to tell you what we’ll be doing today’. That’s the kind of energy he brings and anytime I feel like I can bring him along to a group session with me, it brings a lightness and it brings the ease and security that comes with dog, even if they’re not big. He has a big personality and he just makes you laugh.”
“Lido totally broke the ice,” Garza said. “This little dog walked into Ayres House like he owned the place.”
“A few of them were a little unsure, but I just asked them to try to have an open mind,” Garza said. “I told them nobody was trying to force them to participate.”
With 10 youth, five members of staff, and three interns gathered for the session on chairs, a couch, or quilts on the floor, Neideffer got things rolling.
“She explained about the sound bath process and about why meditation was important,” Garza said.
“A lot of the youth here have experienced childhood trauma. Trauma is blocked energy and she talked about how vibrations can release some of that energy.”
“We started with a meditation card deck,” Neideffer said. “The cards feature artwork to guide participants into a different perspective and open new conversation. Each participant picked a card, was invited to share their interpretation of the artwork and how it felt to them. Then I led a guided meditation to create safe space in the mind that provides a visual focal point for the kids to work with if the minds wanders.”
“After that,” Neideffer said, “I played the crystal singing bowls and allowed the kids to close their eyes and rest. The meditation sessions are an opportunity to explore the imagination and listen to what the body and mind are telling us -- notice if it feels loving, or not.”
When she finished playing, all the kids and staff were invited to share what they experienced while listening to the sounds. The kids got to play the instruments themselves to feel the vibrations. “They noticed how each person that played the singing bowls had their own unique way which created a different sound from the same instrument,” Neideffer said. “This was to show them the beauty of their own unique channel and how they share their energy.”
Neideffer spoke of how gratifying it was to hold this session at Ayres House. “These are the people I want to support, because it’s not just for the kids,” she said. “It’s for the caretakers and people working in the facilities because we all feel anxious, we all feel stress. These sessions help us to quiet the mind and allow the body to rest. That way we can reset our nervous system, we can get out of that ‘Fight or Flight’ for a little bit and really feel that deep breath that we’re missing.”
“When it was over almost all of the kids asked when Neideffer and Lido were coming back,” Garza said.
This National Volunteer Month TJJD salutes the dozens of volunteers who share their time and skills with TJJD youth
- Written by Barbara Kessler
By John McGreey, TJJD Communications
Martin Luther King, Jr. said “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve.” This especially comes to mind right now as April is National Volunteer Month.
TJJD’s core objectives are to help shape the lives of the youth in our care and thereby build safer communities. Defining this work is easy, but doing it can be hard. The dedicated staff at our secure facilities and halfway houses do this work every day, but more help is always welcome.
That’s where our Volunteer Services Program comes in. Our team reaches out their communities across Texas for volunteers to assist with special events and projects involving music, art, gardening, and more.
Faithful volunteers visit our secure facilities and halfway houses each week to lead religious activities and worship services, as requested by our youth.
Volunteers also serve as mentors, to counsel our youth in any number of matters. Still others work as tutors to help the students earn their high school diplomas or GEDs.
Here are some facts we’re pleased to share:
TJJD currently has over 400 volunteers and 20 interns lending their time and talents.
Our longest-serving volunteer, Leonel Rodriguez at our Evins facility, has been with us for 31 years.
In the year 2022, these volunteers pitched in with 14,825 hours.
That should provide some sense of the great people we have helping provide for the youth.
We also gratefully recognize the many TJJD employees who volunteer their free time for special events and football and basketball games. That level of commitment says a lot about the character of the people who work with our students.
Everyone who volunteers shows our youth that, in their own way, they matter. Building a connection to their community and seeing the value and personal satisfaction of service through volunteering.
We’re proud to salute the TJJD volunteers across Texas for their meaningful work, and we invite anyone else moved by the spirit of volunteerism to join them.
To learn more, please go to https://www.tjjd.texas.gov/index.php/volunteer-services