By TJJD Communications
Executive Director Shandra Carter, Chief of Staff Sean Grove and other TJJD leaders kicked off the new year by visiting all five secure facilities, where they met with the superintendents and local leadership teams.
The mission: To connect everyone to the leadership vision, and to feel inspired and hopeful about moving the agency forward. The coming year will be a busy one, encompassing potential legislative action affecting the agency, and actions to improve TJJD and healthy leadership at the facilities are key to our success.
Carter detailed these developments and stressed the importance of maintaining respectful professional leadership and creating teams that work together cohesively and collaboratively as the agency moves forward.
Hardworking TJJD staff need the full support of their leaders. They need to know that they are respected and valued, Carter emphasized.
The visits, which took place over several weeks, brought everyone together, raised camaraderie and ideas as the working groups shared holiday treats and posed for pictures to commemorate the launch of 2023.
At Evins Regional Juvenile Center, Carter and her team brought a rosca de reyes, a wreath of decorated sweetbread commonly baked in the Rio Grande Valley to celebrate Epiphany on Jan. 6. A plastic figure representing the Baby Jesus is baked inside the rosca de reyes or round bread of kings. The person who ends up with the “baby” is conferred good luck and designated to bring tamales for Dia de la Candelaria on Feb. 2. Neat way to rustle up more tamales!
As they traveled the state to touch base at the secure facility campuses in Edinburg, Brownwood, Giddings, Mart and Gainesville, Carter and her team also visited several halfway houses and probation departments.
“It was great to connect with our facility leadership teams,” Carter said. “We focused on alignment on how to achieve our mission and I’m optimistic about this year.”
(Photos: Top right, Evins Regional Juvenile Center; top left, Gainesville State School; below, l-r, Giddings State School; Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex; McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility)
Working with the youth in our care, their success is measured in many ways. High on the list is when they can experience firsthand the importance of doing something for others, for their communities.
In this instance, youth from the Giddings State School got an opportunity to give back to the community by building and painting five wooden rocking horses and donating them to the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas, in Austin.
Two students, A.G. and C.S., helped deliver the horses, all beautifully made and carefully painted, to the Ronald McDonald House last week.
Paula Duke, the Volunteer and Programs Director at the Ronald McDonald House, was there to greet the young men and she told them a little bit about the role of the Ronald McDonald House.
“Ronald McDonald House Charities is an organization that takes care of families while their child is in the hospital or being treated in long-term outpatient treatments,” she said.
“The families that are staying here are going through something very stressful,” Duke continued, “and whether the rocking horses will be used for a child that’s in the hospital or a sibling, they will be very much appreciated, for having something like this donated at their time of crisis.”
“Giddings reached out to us and let us know that this was something that they were doing and they wondered if this was something that we would find useful,” Duke said.
The answer to that question can be found on the smile of the toddler shown here. He was among the first Ronald McDonald recipients of this donation from TJJD.
Giddings students designed and made the rocking horses in Martin Rangel’s woodshop/construction technology classes and then painted them in Michelle Silcox’s art classes.
The trip was a learning opportunity, and both young men represented their school and TJJD well. A.G. expressed that they were “happy to be able to do something for the kids,” and they are hoping to be able to do it again.
Credit for this great work and partnership goes to all the youths involved, as well as the teachers and to Education Director Shelley McKinley and Giddings State School Assistant Principal Tracey Walker and all the members of staff who helped out with this project.
(Photos: TJJD Communications and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas.)
By TJJD Communications
Gainesville State School hosted a large and lively Family Day event for Thanksgiving, with dozens of families and youth enjoying a Chick-fil-A lunch donated by the Potter’s House of Dallas followed by musical entertainment by the Power of Harmony, an a cappella vocal group that performs for youth in correctional settings.
“The a capella singing group demonstrated how powerful the human voice can be and mesmerized the crowd with their tremendous ability to harmonize,” said Stephen Claybrook, Family Enrichment Specialist for Gainesville State School.
“Several youths got involved in the action and volunteered to demonstrate their own vocal ability as well. With mic in hand, they sang, rapped, and performed their original songs they had written. One youth even belted out an amazing beatbox rhythm and the crowd cheered.”
The event was held over two days, to accommodate the more than 320 youth, family members and TJJD staff and volunteers who gathered for it. The families were divided into two time slots each of the two days, allowing them to spread out in the gym and visit with their youth while dining and listening to the music.
Volunteers and staff supplemented the meal with desserts and cookies for the pre-Thanksgiving gathering, which was held Nov 19-20.
The a cappella group, Power of Harmony, was sponsored by Dennis Castiglione of Cleveland, Ohio in collaboration with The Vocal Majority Men’s Chorus in Dallas. They provided not just marvelous music but teaching moments and vocal demonstrations. The group aims to engage youths with musical ensemble performances and by providing male role models to teach the value of community and cooperation.
“We are so grateful to Dennis and his group “Power of Harmony” as well as the nationally known chorus group “The Vocal Majority,” for their time, and the sacrifices they made to come to Gainesville State School and provide entertainment for our youth and their families,” Claybrook said.
TJJD and Gainesville State School also want to thank our volunteers for their help and donations and the Potter’s House ministries and outreach of Dallas for their generous donation providing meals for the youth and their families.
In conjunction with their donation, Potter's House ministers also featured Claybrook and Supt. Darryl Anderson in an interview broadcast to congregants in which the two discussed the important work being done at Gainesville.
Said Claybrook, “This was really a weekend to remember.”
By John McGreevy, TJJD Communications
Books can be powerful things.
Books can inform us, educate us, and motivate us. Books can make us curious enough to go around the world or take us there without leaving our home. They can take us into the past, give us dreams of the future, and even make us laugh.
A book can be great company in a quiet or private time, but it can also be something to be shared. With this in mind, members of the staff at Giddings State School have started a book club for the students there.
They held their first meeting of the club in September and meet an average of twice a month. Taking part in the Book Club is allowed on the condition that participating students are fully caught up in their schoolwork and in compliance with all behavioral guidelines.
“The Mentoring Book Club got its start with several young men, sitting in my art class, who got into a discussion about what they could do to help them to do better when they got out,” said Dr. Tracey Walker, assistant principal at Giddings. “They asked if they could start a book club.”
“Students have varying reasons for attending,” said one of the teachers who leads the reading and discussions in the club meetings. “No doubt, some came out of curiosity and left once that was satisfied. But those who have stuck around, or come more recently, seem to be more interested in what we’re doing and several want to improve themselves and 
their quality of life going forward.”
“And that is at the heart of the book club; it’s specifically a mentoring book club with the purpose of growing and becoming better people. We believe this is an important, life-long process for everyone and we aim to instill that in each of the attending members.”
Currently, the group is reading and discussing Mentor: The Kid and The CEO by Tom Pace. It’s a novel about a young man’s attempt to overcome his troubled adolescence, aided by the efforts and mentorship of a local businessman. The story promotes the importance of such principles as hard work, keeping your word, and making a difference in your community.
Walker had been introduced to the book earlier and was much impressed by it. Eventually, she gave it to a student to see what he thought. Weeks later, another student, B.R., told her he’d read it and loved it. When she later learned that the book was being passed around and read in the dorm, she determined to see if there was a way to build momentum to get the students to spend more time independently reading.
More and more the students were getting excited about not just reading books, but forming a club to meet and discuss what they’d read. This wasn’t something Walker had considered, but it was becoming increasingly clear to her that this was something they wanted to do. They’d even come up with a name for the club: The Mentoring Book Club.
They continued to ask her about the book club having meetings and had been active in ch
oosing what books to read from an approved list of titles. On their own, they gathered names to see who was interested in participating, but Walker was still unsure about how to gather and organize these meetings. She couldn’t do it alone.
That was when a new English teacher at the school heard about the club and immediately asked Walker what she could do to help.
“That was the question we had been needing to hear,” Walker said. “For the first time, I began to see that maybe a meeting would actually be possible. I spoke with Barbara Graves, a staff member in the Recreation department, and she got excited. She offered the use of the recreation building, Mustang Alley.”
Walker is quick to credit students B.R., A.G., and G.U., among others, as being real leaders in the club and setting an example for taking not only the reading material seriously, but the lessons in the books they read as well.
“They will come down and dream about what we can do, and say things like, ‘We should make bookmarks and write our Dream List (a concept from the book) on them,” Walker says.
“It is wonderful to watch them blossom as their thoughts and ideas are validated. It is as if they spoke this vision into existence. We make certain to continue to give them a voice and allow them to dream and try to do the things they suggest. They have great ideas and they keep me going,” she said.
Books can be powerful things. You don’t need to tell that to The Mentoring Book Club.
By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications
Many youths come to TJJD behind in school, often years behind grade level.
That they were not focused on school is no surprise. Some spent their energy elsewhere, while others lacked the support they needed to succeed in school. A few bad breaks, and a few heartbreaking decisions, and they wound up facing a juvenile judge.
But as in all of life, the past does not have to dictate the future.
As part of their rehabilitative program, TJJD youths are enrolled in school and encouraged to catch up on their class credits. They’re offered tutoring and extra help with reading as well as extracurricular activities that help balance academics.
Some latch on to this second opportunity in a big way.
Ayres Halfway House staff, in San Antonio, recently celebrated one motivated young man, M.W., as he completed his goal of earning a high school diploma before he transitioned back to his home community.
M.W. was determined to finish up his final credits while at Ayres and set himself on a new path before his departure, said Patty Garza, Community & Family Relations Coordinator for Ayres House and South Parole Region.
“He had worked diligently to complete his course work with a goal of a future nursing career in mind,” she said, and he became “laser-focused on applying for college before going home to start his new life.”
He also wanted to keep a promise to this mother that he would finish his high school program before coming back home, said Carmen Terry, M.W.’s case manager at Ayres. He regretted past decisions, wanted to make amends and realized that most of all, “he wanted to make his mom proud.”
But M.W. didn’t arrive at Ayres with that same energy. Like many students who start back to school at Ayres’ computer-equipped classroom, he was only mildly engaged at first, said Ayres teacher Kathy Bullock.
So many TJJD youths harbor negative memories of school or have gaps in their attendance caused by various events and hardships. It’s not uncommon, she said, that the last time they were in school was when they were in middle school.
These kids have lost faith in their abilities and find it easier to make excuses than to go all in and make a big effort to resume their academic program, she said.
But as they move through the classes in the self-paced classroom and lock in some successes, “it finally dawns on them that they really can do this, that it is obtainable,” said Bullock, a former public school social studies teacher and coach.
“Then all of a sudden it will click, and that light comes on -- for those that really want it.”
By this fall, several months into his stay, it was clear M.W. really wanted it. He'd powered through summer school. He had a community job. The light was blazing.
“He was gung-ho,” Bullock said.
And as soon as he had his hands on that high school diploma, M.W. turned to the college interns working at Ayres House, ready to take the next step. He asked for their help enrolling in college and filing for the financial aid he would need. That meant filling out significant paperwork, including the thorny FAFSA, required by colleges to determine federal loans and grants.
The interns, T.K. Hooks of UT-San Antonio, Danielle Ramirez of Texas State University and Samantha Medina of San Angelo State University, were happy to assist and being college students themselves they knew the intricacies of the FAFSA.
M.W. was delighted when he was accepted to a college in North Texas. He left Ayres House last week floating on a cloud of optimism and excited about his potential future as a medical professional -- as were his Ayres’ mentors, teachers, and intern helpers.
“It feels good” to send them home on an upbeat note, said Terry. “We’ve had several, like four, who’ve graduated in the past year, prior to them being released.”
“It takes so many hands to help our youth overcome barriers and it most certainly paid off in this instance,” Garza said.
(Photos: M.W. with Ms. Bullock, and lower left, with Ayres House interns.)