TJJD News & Announcements

Everyone – especially young people -- needs encouragement from loved ones. Which is why TJJD arranges family visits for its youth on weekends and designated weeknights, and hosts special periodic “Family Days” with games and food so families can get together at a festive occasion at TJJD campuses.  Still, busy working parents and guardians cannot always make the drive or fit their schedule around visitation. That’s when technology comes to the rescue.  A.E. speaks with his mother. Thanks to the universality of cell phones and easy-to-use apps like FaceTime, Skype and Hangouts, caseworkers and family liaisons are able to offer families “virtual visits” with their son or daughter. Virtual visits started in earnest in fiscal 2016, and took off like wildfire. The number of virtual visits across all TJJD facilities jumped from 178 that year to 2,398 in fiscal 2018 – a more than 12-fold increase. “The kids love it and they ask for it all the time,” says Janet Shee

Twelve parole families in the Northern District, Tarrant County, had a very merry holiday thanks to the generosity of the Fort Worth Resource Council for Youth, parole staff, volunteers, and several friends and family members of retired Parole Service Assistant Leaner Singleton. These Santa’s helpers, along with donations from ALDI’s and Albertson’s groceries, provided enough food for the families to eat comfortably during the two-week break. Each family received three boxes  of food, each included a turkey and a ham, two boxes of cold cereal, instant oatmeal, instant mashed potatoes, instant stuffing, a six pack of ramen noodles, and two cans each of corn, green beans, peas, mixed vegetables, ravioli, spaghettios and tuna as well as two boxes of cake mix and two cans of icing.  In addition, there were two boxes of macaroni and cheese, a box of spaghetti, a jar of spaghetti sauce, a can of pork n beans, a can of chili, and a bag each of rice, kidney and pinto beans, one