By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications

This summer a group of TJJD leaders kicked off a special program for the agency that aims to improve cohesivity, working conditions, youth engagement and behavior management at the secure facilities.

Under the guidance of the Georgetown University’s Youth in Custody Practice Model (YICPM), the agency is pursuing a “Capstone” project that will put strategic changes into play and track and report about them. The aim is to develop a more unified treatment plan for TJJD youth that can make a big difference in youth outcomes, starting with the girls in residence at Mart. At the end of the project, TJJD will receive a certification from GU recognizing the agency’s work to improve and establish best practices.

Antonio Houston, Superintendent of the McLennan County secure facility at Mart, is a key leader of the project and his campus will serve as the flagship program for the Capstone initiatives.

“This is going to give our agency a better toolbelt to help these kids,” Houston said. And an important feature of the project is that the people who work day-to-day at the facility will shape the operational changes, he said.

Houston has already had focus meetings with Juvenile Correctional Officers, Case Managers, and other staffers to gather input that will drive the direction of modifications.

“In the past we’d have Central Office say, ‘Hey, you’re going to do this program.’ Instead of that, we’re getting the staff feedback and saying give us your ideas.”

“We had a training (at Mart) and we talked about the culture and how we can align that with this new program.”

Developing the Plan

TJJD was accepted to participate in the Georgetown University program in May. In June, 12 TJJD executives and program leaders traveled to Washington DC for a week-long training at the GU Center for Juvenile Justice Reform.

In addition to Supt. Houston, the group included: Executive Director Shandra Carter, Director of Structured Programming and Accountability Henry Schmidt III, Deputy Executive Director Sean Grove, Sr. Director of Integrated Treatment Evan Norton, Deputy Director of Treatment Lacey Evans, Training Director Chris Ellison, Senior Director of Secure Facilities Alan Michel, Director of Research Emily Knox, Senior Strategic Advisor Cameron Taylor, Manager of Institutional Clinical Service Erin Nemons and Clinical Director for Forensic Mental Health Services at Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex Autumn Lord.

The TJJD team participated alongside other state juvenile justice professionals from South Carolina, Maryland, and Hawaii. That alone was instructive because everyone shared useful ideas, Houston said.

The hard work came as the facilitators led the state groups through a process of evaluating their programs, benchmarking against best practices, and developing improvement plans.

TJJD leaders concluded that the Texas system follows many best practices but could use improvement in getting everyone out of their departmental silos to better coordinate and collaborate as they make plans for a youth’s progress through the system and beyond, into reentry and back home, Houston said.

“A youth’s case plan is primarily driven by case managers and the youth also have to deal with mental health providers, floor JCOs and dorm leadership. That can be confusing to kids, right?” he said.

The Capstone group knew that implementing a "one case plan" would require that all the adults working with a youth would have to collaborate, practice a team approach and be “speaking the same language, so the kids are not confused,” Houston explained.

Diving deeper the group identified barriers to implementing the plan and came up with ways to overcome those barriers by looking at all areas -- case planning, education, behavioral health, behavioral management, transition/reentry and community-based services, Houston said.

At the same time, they kept the top-level goals in mind of promoting a “safe, fair and healthy environment for the youth” while properly equipping and empowering staff, he said.

The overall case plan would have to include everyone on the ground at the facility and reach outward to include probation officers and families, who are vital to a youth’s enduring success.

“We don’t do a good job of asking the families what their needs are,” Houston said.

The Capstone plan recognizes that shortcoming and is building in multiple ways to engage families more thoroughly throughout their youth’s justice involvement, at TJJD and beyond.

Treatment is Paramount

Another beneficial aspect of moving to a unified case plan approach is that it recognizes the foundational importance of specialized treatment, said TJJD Strategic Advisor Cameron Taylor, who helped outline the Capstone project goals.

Only when youth and their treatment teams effectively address antisocial or dysfunctional behaviors can the youth move forward to make progress mentally, socially, and academically. Conversely, unaddressed dysfunctional behavior will perpetually block their progress.

That’s why the Capstone effort at Mart will encompass a specific treatment protocol already underway at the campus, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which has proven effective in correctional environments. DBT is a form of therapy developed by the psychologist Marsha Linehan that places high value on helping clients with problem-solving, incorporating aspects of acceptance and mindfulness.

Mart staff who work with the girls in residence have been getting training in DBT that includes learning a protocol for managing youth crisis behaviors, such as suicidal, self-harming or assaultive acts.

The training directs staff to consider and explore the antecedents – life events or prior experiences – that lead to these behaviors. Through understanding root causes, the staff learns to strategize solutions for and more effectively manage these behaviors.

“Understanding that youth disruptive or dysfunctional behaviors are their efforts to solve legitimate problems in their lives is core to beginning to offer meaningful treatment to them,” said Dr. Schmidt, who is leading the treatment training at Mart. “The cognitive-behavioral protocol for responding to these behaviors helps the youth and staff understand the youth’s intent and goals, so that we can work to offer them tools to more successfully navigate the challenges of life.”

“We can help youth by providing them with skills to regulate their emotions, tolerate distress, and navigate relationships with others; these are challenges that we all have experienced and share in common.  Our primary task is helping youth to clearly see and evaluate their goals (short-term and long-term), have a variety of options for responding, and to increasingly use skillful means,” Schmidt explained. “We do this by balancing our support for change with acceptance of the challenges of learning new behavior and ways of thinking and acknowledging that change takes time and practice.”

The staff need to be aligned in their help for the youth, he said, and “working from the same sheet of music.”

“The unified treatment plan will assist us to do that, with line staff, case managers, mental health staff, and security all coaching and encouraging the youth in the same direction.”

Far-reaching Impact

The Capstone project is a big endeavor that touches many areas of operations and requires all oars in the water as the team at Mart pilots this project with the girls’ program.

And while it focuses on an effective, unified treatment plan for the youth, it reaches outward to incorporate many adjustments to operations that will facilitate the core goals and have intrinsic value as well.

For example, Supt. Houston is looking at ways to improve the work/life balance for staff to improve the overall campus culture, creating an environment that fosters success. This and other modifications lay the groundwork for the Capstone project, but extend to improve all lives, staff, and youth.

So far staff have told him they’re eager for innovations that will ripple outward.

The Capstone project plan, for instance, calls out that TJJD will cultivate “teamliness” and shared responsibility to meet its new goals of more effective treatment and case management. It’s not hard to envision how that can positively affect many operations at TJJD campuses.

It also calls for reaching out to families, and probation officers and community groups that can help address needs as a youth moves through their proscribed program and prepares to reenter their community.

The hope is that staff at all levels and across departments will be engaged in both developing and finetuning the unified treatment plan and the final set of processes developed will be clear and comprehensive so staff can easily and consistently apply the behavioral interventions they have learned.

As the Capstone plan notes, the quality of services provided to youth is contingent on the quality of training and support provided to the staff. Only when all the parts come together – the training, shared vision, positive work culture and team energy -- can staff most effectively assist and empower the girls at Mart.

Houston says that watching the early progress at the campus, he is optimistic.

In this early stage, everyone is working in concert, setting goals and taking baby steps, but what staff have reported to him after discussions has been positive. “What I heard was ‘thank you,’ for getting our input," he said.

Like them, Houston wasn’t sure what to expect when he was tapped for the Capstone project.

"Going into it I felt kind of apprehensive,” he recalls of the trip to DC. “Is this really going to work? Or will this be a program where we go through the motions? But after going through the training and listening to the presenters and the ideas that the executive team had, I feel confident about it.”

(Photo above: The Capstone team in DC; McLennan County campus Supt. Antonio Houston.)

By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications

TJJD Director of the Texas Model Tom Adamski doesn’t plan to spend his retirement writing a history of the agency.

But he certainly could.

Adamski, who is retiring Aug. 31, started at the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) in 1998 as a case manager and served in facility and executive leadership positions over the next 25 years at the Ron Jackson campus, in Brownwood, and within Central Office.

He worked for many executive directors (12, if you count the conservators), oversaw a variety of youth socialization programs and helped TYC navigate through the complex evolution to becoming TJJD, which in 2011 combined and replaced TYC and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission.

His colleagues came to know Adamski, who’d already completed a 22-year career as a US Army Ranger, as a committed leader who always found a way to manage whatever tasks came his way.

“Tom Adamski is the most dedicated Texas Juvenile Justice Department employee I have ever met.  He has been a mainstay and model of change with the purpose to improve youth’s lives. Tom has been a proven leader as a superintendent and director dealing with agency changes and difficult times,” said Alan Michel, senior director of state facility operations.

Adamski remembers those difficult times and the challenges of 2007-2009, when then-TYC faced a painful public house-cleaning over mistreatment of youth centered at a West Texas facility.

By then, Adamski had worked for a while as a Program Administrator (today called Team Leader) at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex facility overseeing some 60 JCOs on his roll. Texas secure facilities at that time housed hundreds of kids – Ron Jackson had more than 500 -- with youth ranging up to age 21 committed for misdemeanors through felonies. (Today, under the reformed system that emphasizes keeping youth in their counties, and serves youth only up to age 19, the secure state facilities have much lower populations.)

In 2006, Adamski became Assistant Superintendent at the Ron Jackson campus, a time he recalls fondly. “We were firing on all 8 cylinders,” he said. “It was fun to come to work. You didn’t have staffing issues. My staffing was 95 percent filled.”

Then came “rumblings” that there was deep trouble in the agency, and in 2007 it came out that two TYC employees at the West Texas State School in Pyote had allegedly sexually abused several teen boys in their care. The two men were prosecuted, and one was convicted. Investigations uncovered allegations of other violations at TYC facilities, including Ron Jackson, and at least one attempt to cover up problems by TYC leadership, prompting then-Gov. Rick Perry and the legislature to initiate sweeping changes.

These were difficult years for many at TYC. Facilities were downsized and later closed. TYC was placed into conservatorships and leadership changes roiled the process. At one juncture, “we went from being managed by people with backgrounds in childcare to management by people who ran corrections in adult system,” Adamski recalled. The agency see-sawed as executives and new programs came and went.

“We lost a lot of good staff. Many people quit,” he said.

In 2010, the Brownwood campus was downsized when “Brownwood Unit II” was closed. Administrators had to hand out 156 riff notices, Adamski recalled. You can guess this was an excruciating experience from Adamski’s total recall.

“I went down there every day for a week, and I handed those out personally, because I thought I owed them that. I owed them my gratitude and sorrow,” he said.

On a happier note, he remembers that the Ron Jackson HR Department, backed by HR in Austin, was able to secure jobs in the community for about 120 of those who’d been laid off. “They did a hell of a job,” he recalls.

Adamski’s career, and that of many others, was indelibly marked by these ups and downs, but he emerged as a trusted leader whose even hand was needed more than ever. In 2009, he became superintendent of the Ron Jackson campus, which then served about 250 boys.

As if there weren’t enough changes, the Ron Jackson facility moved in 2010 from being an all-boys to an all-girls campus. “This transition for the staff was a real challenge. We had to rebuild the skill base with girls,” Adamski said.

Interestingly, a woman brought in to help the transition suggested “softening” the environment, Adamski recalls, an idea that would land on his desk again in just a few years, as he served in another role working with leadership to make sure programs were trauma informed.

In 2012, Adamski moved from helming Ron Jackson, to overseeing all secure facilities as director of secure operations. This was a job he loved and would embrace until 2018. It leveraged the full range of his experience, from the Army, where he’d worked with a ROTC program, to his educational background and degree in Criminal Justice Administration and Corrections.

The agency had settled into a period of stability, Adamski said. Still, these years brought their own set of demands. To stay in touch with the TJJD’s secure facilities (six at the time) he traveled the state constantly, putting 200,000 miles on state cars in one two-year period. That required resilience on his part and patience from his family, though his three children were now grown.

In 2018, TJJD executive leadership, including then-State Services Director Shandra Carter, recognized Adamski’s deep experience and tapped him for a special role as Texas Model director.

He remembers hearing the vision – that it would encompass trauma-informed care and a training called Trust-based Relational Intervention. He hadn’t heard much about TBRI, but when he took the training at Texas Christian University, it all came together.

“I came back from that, and I was really impressed,” he said. “Hearing Dr. (David) Cross and Shandra (Carter) and others. . . Even though they were talking about foster kids, I thought, 'This can really work with our kids.’ I really drank the Kool-Aid at that training.”

Adamski led the roll out of the Texas Model and TBRI approach to youth rehabilitation at TJJD, coordinating countless trainings, activities, and programming for staff to enable these new approaches to become embedded in how Juvenile Correctional Officers, teachers, and mental health professionals work with the youth at secure facilities.

Getting the Texas Model to become “internalized” was a huge team effort that depended on many players, including Tatrina Bailey, Troy McPeak and Sr. Director of Integrated Treatment Dr. Evan Norton, whom Adamski describes as man who knows how to work in the trenches of youth rehabilitation and could “deescalate a pit viper.”

TJJD Executive Director Shandra Carter said the agency has greatly benefited from Adamski’s contributions.

“Tom Adamski is a trusted leader in our agency and will be greatly missed,” Carter said.  “He has incredible depth of experience and moves forward with an uncommon flexibility. He has professionally evolved with the constantly changing juvenile justice landscape. His steadfast commitment to ensuring safety while providing effective rehabilitative services to youth has been inspiring to us all.”

Added Alan Michel, “Tom has been a stable, constant force and spokesman for positive change.”

“It’s been a great career” with many proud accomplishments, Adamski said. At the same time, he says he’s eager for retirement. He and his wife, Geralyn, recently built a new home in Tuscola, near Abilene, where they’ll be gardening together and enjoying their fur pals, a King Shepherd named Aslan and their five (the number is not a mistake) Papillon dogs.

They plan to staycation, work on their forever house and he will spend recreation time at the firing range, where he target shoots pistols and long-range rifles.

And instead of worrying about fine-tuning a government agency, he’ll be tuning up his other “baby,” his Harley Davidson 2022 Street Glide St. “My wife,” he said, “is going to let me put a new motor in it.”

Photos: Tom Adamski; Tom with his King Shepherd buddy, Aslan.