Youth Demographics

The typical youth at TJJD has experienced significant childhood trauma. This consistent set of threats and stress they have lived through can actually hamper brain development, setting it to believe they are under almost constant threat.

That means that it is likely that they do not react to stress or think through decisions in the same ways as other teens, which probably led to many of the reasons they came to us. Our goal must then be to create an environment where we can help them to learn how to make decisions, manage their own emotions and reactions to stress, and learn to take responsibility for their lives and decisions—in other words to correct.

This goal leads us to the Texas Model. The model requires creating an atmosphere where youth can feel safe and begin to build appropriate trusting connections and set appropriate boundaries with others. This environment allows staff to correct behavior in a way that best enables progress and learning and empower youth to regulate their reactions to stress and emotions and build better decision-making skills.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

One tool that helps our agency understand our youths’ backgrounds and experiences is called Adverse Childhood Experiences—or ACEs. ACEs involve tracking ten of the most pervasive and significant negative experiences of childhood. They include physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, domestic violence, mental illness in the home, substance abuse in the home, a close family member in prison, and parents apart.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) states that ACEs have a tremendous impact on future violence, victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. People with just one of these factors have a 200% to 500% increased chance of attempting suicide. At four ACEs, the chances of a suicide attempt goes up to 2400% higher and at seven ACEs to a staggering 5100% higher than those with no ACEs.

In the general public, CDC estimates that 12.6% of the general public have four or more of these factors. In contrast, 52% of our youth in secure facilities have four or more in a conservative estimate. When broken down, about 50% of our boys have four or more ACEs and 87% of our girls have four or more with 47% of girls having seven or more.

These types of traumatic experiences in childhood are rarely isolated, but rather are often pervasive, happening consistently. When a child grows up in such an environment, it often affects brain development. The most important issue related to brain development is that the portion of the brain that controls problem solving, judgment, impulse control, empathy, and appropriate social and sexual behavior does not develop at the same rate as other youth, so the part of the brain that contains survival instincts, emotions, and the fight, flight, or freeze response is in control more often than it is in other kids. There will be more on this topic to come, but the central point is that because of these issues, our youth often have a “hair-trigger fear response”. This means that they often react to triggers and stressors that we may not even notice through quickly escalating responses because their survival brain is taking over.

If you would like to learn more, you can go to the CDC’s website or Aces Too High.  And if you would like to understand your own ACE score as well as your resiliency factors that help you with any ACEs you may have, go here.

Trauma-Informed Corrections

Trauma-informed corrections is central to the vision of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Every day in our facilities we have interactions with our youth that have the potential to end in violence or self-harm. Our goal is always to provide the best possible outcome, but too often past treatment options overlooked the underlying cause of a youth’s behavior, in particular a history of childhood trauma.

The intention of Trauma-informed corrections is to understand how childhood trauma can create triggers, frustrations, anxiety, and other symptoms that are part of a youth’s suffering. When children experience trauma, it affects how their brain grows. For example, experiences like abuse and neglect can slow or delay development of the frontal lobe, the part of the brain that governs problem solving, judgment, impulse control, empathy, and appropriate social and sexual behavior. As a result, children with severe trauma can instead live in a “survival mode” governed by their amygdala, the portion of the brain responsible for survival instincts and emotions. For a youth working from this portion of their brain, asking them to make good choices or take responsibility for their actions is impossible until they can develop and grow. They may react in a way that satisfies the adults around them, but that is compliance. They are learning what to say or do to get along or “survive”. This does not mean they are making the changes they need to be successful in the community.

The good news is that a teenager’s brain is elastic. Professionals trained in Trauma-informed corrections can actually help young people develop higher level thinking skills by first focusing on their ability to regulate their emotions and behaviors. This involves helping them feel physically and emotionally safe, building appropriate trusting relationships, and teaching them to learn self-regulation. We may not solve all of their problems while they are under our care in TJJD, but if we can help them develop, we help them to be forever able to better regulate their own behavior by identifying their own triggers. That, in turn, will allow them to react to stressful situations in more appropriate ways and make better decisions overall.

How do we know that this approach applies to the youth in our system? Our staff understands the implications of “adverse childhood experiences,” or ACEs, and how they the behavior of youth and adults.

The number of ACEs a person has is a key predictor of life outcomes. A person with four or more typically has major health issues and severe behavioral problems. The fact is that almost all of our youth in our care have experienced childhood trauma, but a conservative estimate suggests that 45% have four or more ACEs, 3.5 times more than the average person.

As daunting as that figure is, it means that the TJJD staff have an exciting opportunity to be the people who help our youth begin to build a bridge from trauma to recovery. In doing so, we can provide them with the opportunity to lead fuller, more productive lives for themselves and for their own families.

Want to learn more? Here are some resources to help:

• Learning your own ACEs score may help you to put it into perspective and determine if you have triggers of your own. https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/
• The following videos help explain the science and history of trauma-informed care: