“It was a great experience. This was experience in between my previous and current stint with TCJS. At the time, I had reached a point in my career where I was looking to take the next step. I was told I didn’t have enough experience in different areas (overseeing a big budget, oversight of facilities, supervising large teams, etc.), and it got a bit frustrating. I then learned of an opportunity with Grayson and was told I’d have the chance to take that next step in a couple of years, so I took the chance, went with them, and it worked out well.

The people were great and so committed to their work. I recognized and helped nudge towards areas of needed growth and they did some really wonderful work while I was there.”

“I’ve been here for 12 days so far but have been told numerous times by the court and by my boss that there are opportunities to build sustained programs and utilize evidence-based programming. This is really exciting to me. It’s also the most daunting part, but it is more exciting.”

“One of my previous roles was the Training Coordinator at Tarrant and a former mentor challenged me to look into the history about what was great and also what was challenging about our department. I found a number of things that ended up in the training, ultimately bringing in different speakers to talk about the history of JJ here. I brought in some alumni and ultimately listened to what they valued about being here.

I was focused on simply trying to make a training about history, for a few hours, not seem boring. There was a judge in the audience who said, ‘You should think about publishing this’. Here I was just trying to get through the training but all of a sudden, I’m now thinking about writing a book. I found a publisher who was interested and ultimately wrote, Exception: One County’s Dreams for Realizing Juvenile Justice.  

I ended up writing a few other books: one on leadership called “Need based leadership” and then tried my hand at fiction, a mystery with a social justice focus using a historical event in Grayson County called “Assembly List”.

I have about four more books in the works.”

“There were actually a number of them that I like to call, ‘wise elders’ who’ve helped me. William Miller is one. His words, wisdom, and approach to people. He’s one of the co-founders of motivational interviewing. His work taught me that change is within every individual.

Mel Brown, NPJS member, and longtime probation administrator (we intersected in both having early careers in Tarrant County and living in the same small town in Arkansas). Dr. Brown has pretty much been there and done that in juvenile justice, and there is almost no scenario I’m going through that he hasn’t been through before. His focus on how systems work to benefit people is regularly on my mind.

Carey Cockerell is a former Director of Juvenile Services in Tarrant, among other roles in Juvenile Justice. He shared a story at an event about Tarrant where he was discussing reordering furniture. Somebody told him that you’re just dealing with a bunch of juveniles, you don’t need anything fancy. His response was that we’re going to treat people with dignity and not settle for something that’s not quality. Even in our seemingly mundane decisions about furniture, we can make people feel cared about. That has stuck with me.”

“Usually, this answer comes from interactions with the youth we serve but I haven’t had a lot of those opportunities in my most recent roles.

I’m big on the science of hope though. I’ve met and spoken with a number of people in this area: Dr. Chan Hellman and Rick Miller. I’m a fan of their work. Another is Kathryn Goetzke. Among some of her work is writing curriculum about the science of hope for various populations. Recently she wrote a curriculum, ‘Hope for Incarcerated Populations’ that was focused on adults.

I initially tried to encourage staff to pilot this with juveniles in a residential program. I didn’t have any takers, so I led a group of 12 young men through an eight-week curriculum about hope in the fall of 2025. Having tweaked it for juveniles, and hoping they might indulge me, they ended up loving it. They were very engaged and all 12 of those individuals graduated. Part of the curriculum included them taking a validated youth scale on hope both prior to the class and following its conclusion. Eleven of the 12 saw their hope scores rise, which is predictive of greater success later on in life. That was very encouraging. Seeing the light bulb turn on for a young person is always a memorable experience. Being a part of that investment in the change for 12 young men over a short 8-week period was the kind of thing that makes all the hard days worth it.”

"The advice that’s sticking with me lately that has come up in multiple conversations is based around beliefs. Can you think your way to new actions? Or do your actions make you think a certain way.

I think you can have the best programs in the world but if you don’t have belief, they won’t be successful. If your belief system is off, then you won’t have the success you desire.

A few authors have solidified some of my core beliefs about working with young people or people in general. Ross Green (one of the founders of Collaborative Problem Solving) says ‘Kids do well if they can.’ If you believe that kids do well if they want to, your job is always trying to motivate them to do well. If you believe that they can do well, your job changes and becomes trying to find out what is getting in the way.

Rick Miller (founder of Kids at Hope) says, “All people are capable of success, no exceptions”. The science of hope allows a reframe of vision and dreams towards thriving, and not simply, surviving.

Father Greg Boyle (founder of Homeboy Industries” says, ‘the ultimate measure of health in any community might well reside in our ability to stand in awe at what folks have to carry rather than in judgement at how they carry it.

These all get at our underlying belief about people and change. I think that belief about people, including young people and families that intersect with juvenile justice, informs how we carry out our practices and programs – no matter how good they are or how much evidence supports them. Without a proper foundation of belief, we can do a lot of good things that do not have true impact. A paraphrase from Dean Fixsen (father of implementation science), ‘young people and families do not benefit from interventions, supports, or services they do not receive’. While he was talking about the importance of fidelity to truly implement evidence-based programs,  I’d add that they also do not benefit from interventions, supports, or services from people who do not believe they can actually change.”

“Two things come to mind. One is belief that we just spoke about. The other is from a system perspective. We keep swinging on this pendulum, we have to understand what safety looks like. There’s short-term and long-term safety. We swing to both ends of this continuum repeatedly.

Having become a probation officer in 1995, I was looking at different books to help me try and figure out how to be good at my job. One of them – No Matter How Loud I Shout – tells of a journalist who is teaching kids in Los Angeles County at Juvenile Hall about writing. He made a statement based on the research about the young people that has stayed with me for my career. He shared that in Los Angeles County, youth on probation essentially had a 50% chance of recidivism. He asked a rhetorical question wondering if youth who were never on probation might do just as well. I’ve been spending my career trying to increase the odds for youth and families. How do we create a system that might tip the odds and do good for all (or at least most) of the youth in our care? I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“This is my second term. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve. For each term, my role has been Discipline Chair for Court and Probation Services. What I value about NPJS is that it is a member-driven organization that has members from all over the country. I’m personally doing a lot of administrative work now but am excited about bringing together folks from across the nation to share what they are doing to contribute to tipping the odds for youth and families.”

“I’m a husband and father of two adult boys. I love sports in all its forms. I enjoy reading books as well. My ideal vacation is in the mountains with a river or some body of water to fish in.

In my hometown, Denton, Texas, they have an annual statewide story-telling festival, and I’ve gone to some version of the events every year for the past 25 years. Maybe one day I’ll tell a story at this or another conference, (laughs) but not yet. But whether it’s in a book, on TV, or in movies, I love a good story. And I love the idea of helping a young person author their story.”