TJJD News & Announcements

Lidia Velazquez, who works as a parole service assistant in the Fort Worth District Office, is the only electronic monitoring specialist in the state juvenile justice system. This comes with a lot of responsibility, as she handles every single electronic monitor placed on TJJD youth. It is a job she handles with professionalism and a clear understanding of the policy involved, said Billy Branch, the parole officer who nominated Velasquez for the TJJD Employee Excellence Award for the month of July. Velazquez also is bilingual, which makes her invaluable to the Fort Worth office, where she often helps facilitate meetings between parole officers and Spanish-speaking families. But she goes a step beyond simple translating, Branch wrote. “Her demeanor and personality puts those families at ease to the point that they feel comfortable relaying valuable information concerning the state of our youth,” he said. As parole assistant, she helps out in countless ways that are not strictly spelle...

By Y. Denise Caldwell,   CFRC Northern District Mentor pairs and members of the Book Club at McFadden Ranch recently had the opportunity to meet with Luke Zamperini, only son of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner and World War II veteran and hero. The occasion was to launch the book study of Louis Zamperini’s life story, “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand.   “Unbroken” tells about his childhood in California, becoming an Olympic runner and his years as a World War II prisoner of war. It’s also a book of redemption and faith, hope and forgiveness. Luke, his wife Lisa and an associate, Drake Morton, visited McFadden on Saturday, June 30, where they showed a 34 minute documentary (The Great Zamperini) and Luke shared personal stories about growing up with his father. He graciously answered several questions from the youth and mentors and expressed his thanks to TJJD for allowing him to be there and his belief in second chances. “Our main reason for being there is to impa...

Cris Burton, who’s retiring this month after 22 years with TYC/TJJD, leaves an important legacy, having served as the administrator of the PAWS (Pairing Achievement with Service) program and one of its founders. This unique canine training and treatment program has helped more than 200 youth rise to the challenge of helping shelter dogs learn good behavior, improving their adoptability. PAWS began at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Facility in 2010. It was a collaborative effort between Burton, who’d long envisioned a program modeled on the first prison canine training effort (at a women’s facility in Washington), and Holli Fenton, an employee at Ron Jackson with ties to the dog rescue community in Brownwood. Burton, who has a master’s in counseling psychology, designed the PAWS regimen, which he explains helps to break down the psychological walls that TJJD youth have built in response to their hard lives. Fenton put PAWS into operation at Brownwood, where girls in...

Xavier Casares, a commander who oversees the South Division of the Office of Inspector General, received the TJJD Employee Excellence Award for the month of June. Lt. Casares, who has worked for TJJD since April 2013, was cited for his contagious spirit of cooperation and professionalism and for serving as a mentor to those serving in police communications within the Incident Reporting Center. “Commander Xavier Casares has motivated and strengthened our drive in our respective fields to become better TJJD employees,” said a fellow employee. “His number one priority is the safety and the well-being of youth at our facilities as well as TJJD employees and because of that, he molded the IRC to provide better ways of communication and strategy to do so.” He “believes in the capabilities of the IRC Specialists” and makes himself available to them. “He never shies away from a challenge and his door is always open whenever we have a question, an issue or simply need advice,” sa...

Noel Ruiz, an Inventory and Store Specialist working in the Business Operations and Contracts Division, received the TJJD Employee Excellence Award for the month for May. Ruiz, who began working for the agency in April 2008, has demonstrated commitment, dedication and initiative in a job that operates behind the scenes and is rarely recognized, unless something goes wrong, according to his supervisor, Director of Business Operations & Contracts Kenneth Ming. Ruiz helps assure that everyone has the supplies they need, singlehandedly receiving all the commodity goods purchased by and shipped to Central Office. He also manages TJJD’s – wait for it – $195 million in assets. Wrote Ming in recommending Ruiz for recognition: “While I have the title of Agency Property Manager, Noel does all of the work and gets very little credit. He does the annual inventory, identifies missing items, does administrative work in CAPPS, disposes, transfers and retires assets.” And then Ming ...

Leonard Cucolo, longtime court liaison for Texas Juvenile Justice Department/Texas Youth Commission, retired last week after 30 years with the agency. As court liaison for the past two decades (covering the entire state for the past 17 years), Cucolo traversed Texas countless times to testify in hearings for determinant-sentenced youth. Caseworkers and administrators prepared detailed files of a youth’s record while in custody in preparation for the hearings, where juvenile court judges weighed if a youth would be paroled or moved to an adult prison. It was Cucolo’s job to testify on behalf of the agency’s position. “I represented the work everybody did and it was an honor to do that,” Cucolo said at his retirement reception at TJJD’s central office in Austin on June 29. Earlier, Cucolo explained that his job placed him squarely in the middle of an emotional, high stakes event – the courtroom where a youth’s future was being decided. The news he delivered typically elated one...