Working as a probation officer for Hidalgo County’s Mario Ramirez Juvenile Justice Center, she recalls telling the youth at the detention center to straighten up or they could end up at the Evins facility. “Even though I never toured Evins back then, we were just a few miles down the road,” she said, referring to the last stop for juvenile offenders.
Her first impression of the Evins facility was totally different then the negative stories that she had heard out in the field. “Evins has great trained tenured staff, strong family programs and great community support,” she said. She also noted that it takes a special kind of employee to work with the TJJD population.
“This work is not for everyone but it is for many and we have good, dedicated staff on campus. The kids need to know that they can trust the staff and that they matter to them,” she said. “I want to build up the morale of the staff. We need to increase our family involvement and get more mentors involved.”Using the old African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child,” she recounted that as a single parent, how important family, friends and neighbors were in helping raise her daughter. “These youth here need to see more family involvement and opportunities and I plan to see that we provide as much as we can.”
As for community support she believes that every youth at Evins can benefit from a volunteer. “It is the added component that the youth needs to supplement our treatment program. We know that mentoring works; so, the more mentors we have, the better the youth will be,” she said.
When asked what if anything she wanted the youth to take with them when they leave the agency, her answer was quick and straightforward. “I want the youth to know that the past does not dictate nor define what their future will be. Only they can choose and be whatever they want in life.”
Before joining the TJJD family, Ms. Cabrera was employed as Assistant Director of Education and was Program Chair for the Associate Degree Program in Criminal Justice at Kaplan University. Her stint in the Juvenile Criminal Justice field includes 12-and-a-half-years as a Juvenile Probation Officer at the Mario Ramirez Juvenile Justice Center in Edinburg. She also worked in the Gray County Juvenile Probation Department in Pampa, Texas where she supervised juvenile sex offenders and in the Hemphill Juvenile Boot Camp in Canadian, Texas as a drill instructor. Ms. Cabrera fills in the vacant position left open when superintendent Donald Brooks passed away last February.