Stichin for the Journey Group Delights Ayres Halfway House Youth with Donations of Handcrafted Quilts
By Patty Garza, Community Relations & Family Coordinator, Ayres House and South Parole
Ayres Halfway House, in San Antonio, has been blessed to partner with “Stichin for the Journey,” a group of San Antonio area quilters with remarkable talents and big hearts.
Last year this generous group donated a quilt to every single youth at Ayres House.
What staff thought was a onetime donation for the beds at the house turned into an ongoing relationship. The amazing quilters kept quilting and donating. They wanted each youth to get a new quilt to keep for themselves to take with them as they transition home.
They wanted each youth to know that one person spent multiple hours making something specifically for them.
They wanted all the youth passing through Ayres House to know that someone cared.
Each of these quilts can take anywhere from 20-50 hours to complete and cost $300 to $500 to make. Each bears a “care message” designed just for Ayres House youth. It says, “Stitched for you piece by piece by someone who cares.”
When youth go home after their rehabilitation time in TJJD, life doesn’t miraculously fall into place. A youth continues to face many challenges and barriers. Stichin for the Journey (SFTJ) hopes that on those hard days, they’ll see their quilts and remember that people do care about them.
Seeing the Stichin group, led by Debbie DeCamp and Rebecca Rindhal, deliver five new quilts at the end of January for newly arriving youth touched everyone at Ayres House.
“It’s really great to see what Mrs. DeCamp and her colleagues are doing for the youths by donating these quilts. It really does put a smile on their faces. They seem to understand just how much work goes into them. They even asked her about the whole process when she came in,” said Katelyn Brambila, an intern who works at Ayres House.
“The most heartwarming thing I witnessed during Mrs. DeCamp’s last visit had to be one of the youth’s excitement to see her. He had been wanting to see if she would be able to add a patch to his quilt. The patch said something along the lines of ‘made with love by someone who cares’, Brambila said. “That might seem like a small ask, but it was clear that it meant a lot to him to have that patch on his quilt, and I know it made him happier.”
“I was amazed by her generosity and loving compassion for the youth,” said another Ayres intern, Teniola Okeyemi. “Her dedication to youths shows them that they are cared for.”
Okeyemi asked DeCamp about why she started quilting and how the quilts were made.
“As I and other staff members, as well as some of the youth, sat with her and watched her sew, her storytelling lit up the room with smiles and laughter,” Okeyemi said.
Ayres House staff are beyond grateful for these gifts and the continuing support of the quilters of Stichin for the Journey.
TJJD's Online Caregiver Training Series Resumes this Month, Helping Loved Ones with their Youth's Transition Home
By John McGreevy, TJJD Communications
Starting February 21, TJJD resumes its Texas Model Training for TJJD Youth Caregivers and Families. It’s an interactive training series that offers family and caregivers an overall approach to understanding the Texas Model and using it to help their kids while in TJJD facilities and after they return home.
This is all done via live Zoom classes that run for six weeks. Participants only need an email address and a phone, tablet, or computer with internet access.
Tatrina Bailey-Josephs, Texas Model Implementation Sustainment Leader at TJJD, has high expectations for the initiative.
"The seminars contain information about Texas Model subjects including healthy coping skills, how to attain emotional/behavioral regulation, the significance of connection, behavioral correction strategies, and other tools and techniques for helping adolescents achieve success," she said.
At the end of each session, there will be time for questions or to share your experiences with your youth and the Texas Model.
Each time a parent, caregiver, or family member participates in one of these six sessions, the youth’s file is updated to reflect that. After you complete the series, or at least most of it, your youth’s case manager or parole officer may reach out to you to schedule a virtual meeting with you and your youth to discuss how the Texas Model strategies have benefitted your youth.
The youth can share which regulation tools are working and which portions of the Texas Model programming might be helpful upon returning home. The skills the Texas Model teaches help a youth increase their chance for success as they transition back to their home community.
The series will be offered four times this year:
- Session 1: February 21st - March 28th
- Session 2: May 9th - June 13th
- Session 3: August 8th - September 5th
- Session 4: October 17t h- November 21st
To sign up for these sessions, or to get more information, contact your child’s case manager.
Carter and Team Visit Secure Facilities, Halfway Houses and Probation Departments
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)
TJJD Youth Make and Donate Rocking Horses to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas
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.)
Gainesville Hosts Huge Family Day Event for Thanksgiving
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.”