Texas Juvenile Justice Department

A group from TJJD recently toured youth correctional facilities in Utah, anticipating the agency’s proposed new builds in Texas. The group -- State Programs Sr. Director Alan Michel, Training and Programming Director Chris Ellison, Sr. Director of Treatment Evan Norton and Director of Construction and Engineering Zachary Valdez -- visited three Utah facilities. They looked at modern building practices and safety features for youth corrections installations, with an eye to what TJJD would want to incorporate in new planned and budgeted state facilities in Texas. “I was impressed by the integration of natural light, the flow from one space to another and the safety elements that didn't feel classically correctional,” Norton said. “We spent time with a number of Utah staff and youth as we toured the facilities and were struck by the professionalism and dedication they showed.” The facilities toured were the Decker Lake Youth Center in West Valley City; the Weber Valley Youth Center in Ogden; the Salt Lake Valley Youth Center, in Salt Lake City.

Congrats to the latest two TJJD executives to be selected for the prestigious Governor’s Executive Development Program, a three-week intensive training for top leaders in Texas agencies and universities. Christopher Ellison, director of program development and training, and Jana Jones, chief general counsel, will attend the GEDP sessions, held in September, October and December. The Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs operates the program, which is designed for those in top positions with responsibility for developing the direction of their agencies. It covers organizational strategy, infrastructure and resource management and personal effectiveness. The trainings bring in experts to help participants learn more about leadership styles and how to best serve the public. Ellison has worked at TJJD for ten years helping shape and oversee the TJJD Training Academy, which trains staff in how to appropriately work with justice-involved youth. He previously served in leadership roles at Rite of Passage which provides programming to at-risk youth. Ellison has overseen detention and post-adjudication facilities in other states. He has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Texas A&M University and a master’s in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. Jones joined TJJD in early 2024 after several years with the Special Prosecution Unit, where she was the juvenile division chief overseeing cases originating at TJJD secure facilities. She also served two terms as district attorney for the 271st District Court in Wise County. She began her career in the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office. Jones has a master’s in social work from the University of Texas at Arlington and a bachelor’s in Family Relations from Texas Tech University, where she also received her law degree. “I am honored to have been accepted into the fall 2024 class of the Governor’s Executive Development Program,” she said. “I appreciate this opportunity to elevate my leadership skills, learn more about state governance, and network with others in similar positions across the state.” TJJD Executive Director Shandra Carter nominated Ellison and Jones for the program. The Office of the Governor reviews the candidates and makes the selections. TJJD executives who’ve been selected for the program previously include: Sr. Director of Secure Facilities Alan Michel, Chief of Staff Rachel Gandy, Deputy Executive Director for Finance and Operations Emily Anderson and Deputy Executive Director Sean Grove. Michel and Grove have both lauded the program for helping them build skills, understand change management and meet peers across state agencies.

Attention, job seekers in the DFW area! The Dallas County Juvenile Probation Department will be hosting a job fair this coming Saturday, Aug. 24. The fair starts at 9 am and concludes at noon at the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center, 2600 Lone Star Dr., Dallas. The department is looking to hire juvenile detention officers, who earn $21 to $29 an hour. There also are openings for other positions and part-time opportunities. Qualified applicants can meet hiring managers and may get on-the-spot interviews. Contact [email protected] to confirm your attendance at this event or ask questions. Please bring copies of your resume with you.

Each week our staff and youth focus on one skill or set of skills taught by DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy). These were developed to help people effectively manage crisis situations and difficult emotions. DBT is being used in all aspects of daily life across TJJD campuses. This week, TJJD staffers are focusing on the DBT skill set dubbed IMPROVE, which is an acronym for a set of strategies people can use to cope with negative events and highly stressful situations. IMPROVE teaches the youth to use calming Imagery, draw Meaning from a crisis and employ Prayer and Relaxation to get through their struggle and tolerate the distress they feel. They may remind themselves, for example, that “God doesn’t give me challenges I cannot handle.” IMPROVE also counsels people to stay in that One moment as they negotiate a problem or any activity. To be “in the moment” means to be mindful, non-judgmental and accept the good and the bad. This can help a person distract themselves from a distressing event. IMPROVE further advises people to take a breather or mental break, a Vacation, from their struggle. Finally, IMPROVE encourages people using DBT skills to Encourage themselves by using their inner dialogue to say, “I can handle difficult things” or “I’m capable and I’ve got the skills to get through this.” The strategies contained within IMPROVE, as well as other DBT skills, are ultimately helping youth at TJJD build the resilience and social skillfulness they need to navigate the interpersonal situations and circumstances that previously roadblocked them from moving ahead with their goals. DBT skills help them pave the way to a more successful life. Yes, DBT can be a lot to unpack. At first blush it can sound difficult to understand -- the rarified province of psychologists and therapists. But in reality, it is a program that offers practical, social/emotional skills and techniques that adolescents can use to calm their life, accept what they cannot change and better manage or tolerate incidents that once caused them to act out against others or hurt themselves. Youth at TJJD have been learning and practicing DBT skills for several months and early reports indicate that these tools are incredibly useful. Furthermore, scientific research on using DBT with adolescents confirms its positive impact. We will talk more about the TJJD DBT program in stories and social posts to come. Stay tuned!

Congrats to TJJD’s Probation Services Director Ashley Kintzer for completing the Senior Management Program conducted by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT-Austin. The two-week training, held in June and July in San Antonio, brought 55 state employees together to hear professors from UT and Texas State University. Classes covered leadership, communication and presentation skills, ethics, data analytics, organizational culture, negotiation and change management. 

TJJD is looking for teachers for our Lone Star High School at the McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility, in Mart. Teachers at TJJD schools provide a complete Texas public school curriculum to youth committed to secure state facilities. We are looking for talented and dedicated teachers for a range of positions with competitive salaries, strong benefits, and the chance for advancement. Perhaps most importantly, as a teacher at TJJD you can make a big difference in the lives of youths working to turn their lives around. #juvenilejustice #secondchance

Community service can help young people feel their worth and place in their world – and in the case of this project in Bryan, Texas, it is brightening both lives and townscapes. Read about this beautiful collaboration between The Arts Council of the Brazos Valley and the Brazos County Juvenile Services Department. Great work! 

Two TJJD executives, Drs. Evan Norton and Shantae Motley, attended the annual conference of the International Association for Forensic Mental Health Services (IAFMHS), held in San Francisco in June. This was the premier meeting of one of the top forensic mental health groups in the world. It brought together experts from across the globe to share cutting edge research and practices while creating space for international collaboration. Norton, director of Treatment Services for TJJD, and Motley, director of Research for TJJD, presented two papers at the conference: “Rightsizing Treatment Dosage for Adolescents who have committed Capital Offenses: Integration of Risk and Personality Assessments” and “Trauma-Informed Juvenile Corrections: The Continuous Impact of Reform in Texas’ Secure Youth Facilities.” “I appreciated the opportunity to share the great work TJJD is doing with the world. It was exciting to see many of the things we’re doing here in Texas are also in practice across the world,” Norton said. “One moment I was having a conversation with a professor from Oxford University about forensic risk assessment; the next talking through treatment practices with clinical teams from New Zealand.” “As a first-time participant at the IAFMHS conference, I was excited to showcase the Research & Reporting team’s work at TJJD on an international stage. The conference allowed me to engage with forensic mental health practitioners from Australia and exchange information with colleagues from the UK and New York. This valuable insight into forensic mental health treatment helps our team provide accurate data and assessments for our mental health treatment providers.” Lacey Evans, deputy director of Treatment Services joined Norton and Motley at the conference.

Nearly 100 juvenile services professionals gathered at the annual JJAEP (Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Programs) conference hosted in Austin this week by TJJD. An afternoon training on Trust-based Relational Intervention (TBRI) by Troy McPeak, training specialist with the Karyn Purvis Institute for Child Development, was one of many highlights. McPeak began as a TBRI practitioner at Williamson County, a pioneer in using TBRI in youth detention, and later helped install TBRI practices at TJJD. TBRI encourages caregivers to build healthy relationships with youth in care as a critical precursor to affecting change in young people. Youth from traumatic backgrounds need caregiving that meets their unique needs, McPeak said. When practitioners are good at this, youth behavior improves and so does safety and security, the core goal of corrections programs. In an effective TBRI program, youth learn to regulate their emotions and find their voice, so they can advocate for themselves. These are “the greatest gifts” that staffers can give to the adolescents and teens in their care, McPeak said. When probation officers and others in direct care give a voice to the youth, recognize their fears and try to understand them, the youths achieve a “felt safety” that opens a door for them to make positive changes. Many of the kids served by juvenile departments don’t have anyone who “shows up for them,” and their distress is nearly constant -- “it’s a runaway train,” McPeak said. They mask their feelings with drugs or turn to aggression and manipulation to get the attention that’s been missing in their lives. “The kids we serve are in desperate and dire situations. If we don’t step up, they’re going to go back to difficult situations and may not even survive,” McPeak said, after recounting the cases of several kids with whom he’s worked. Some of those youth went on to success and some were drawn back into tragic circumstances. He exhorted audience members to be that one empathetic, but authoritative adult a youth needs to turn their life around. “We can be a real-life hero in the lives of these kids because we’re meeting them at a fork in the road. We can step in and make a huge difference.” Other presenters this week at the Barbara Jordan Building included: Nathan Tucker of Prairie View A&M Cooperative Extension Program; Meagan Butler, LPC, co-founder of Lucero (pictured presenting); Regine Mojica with the state office of Community Resource Coordination Group; Kimberly Glaudy, supervisor the new wellness program for staff at TJJD (pictured presenting); Robert Fischer, TJJD Assistant Superintendent, Ashley Kintzer and Dr. Susan Scott of TJJD Probation Services and many others. Thanks to the TJJD JJAEP and Probation Services teams for organizing a great series of trainings. #TBRI #JJAEP #JuvenileJustice

TJJD’s Tamayo Halfway House youths have been back in action this week, helping fill and load sandbags as the Texas Gulf Coast continues to prepare for a potential storm hit sometime late Sunday or early Monday from Hurricane Beryl. Beryl weakened to a tropical storm after it made landfall on the Mexican Yucatan, but forecasters say it will likely regain intensity as it moves back over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The trajectory of a re-intensified Beryl (hurricane or tropical storm) was not certain, but increasingly weather models showed landfall on the South Texas coast. Late Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service issued a Hurricane Watch for the Texas coast from the Mexican border northward to Matagorda County. Preparations have been underway for days along that long stretch of coastline, since Hurricane Beryl emerged in the Atlantic becoming a Category 5 hurricane on Monday and then battered islands in the Caribbean. Beryl was the first hurricane known to reach Category 5 so early in the season. Tamayo Superintendent Eduardo Garza said Friday that the TJJD youths have been assisting Cameron County authorities for the last three days by filling and distributing sandbags to local residents. The youths made over 1,500 sandbags and distributed close to 2,000 sandbags, Garza said, adding that their work has impressed local officials.   Staff and youth have also prepared for the storm at Tamayo House, which is in Harlingen about 30 miles inland. They’ve boarded the windows against winds and rain and have 60 sandbags on hand to use in case of flooding in the area. #Beryl #CommunityService #TexasCoast