TJJD News & Announcements

MART, Texas – Visitors to the McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility (Mart) campus will be greeted in a more welcoming gatehouse lobby in an effort to make the facility more family friendly. In addition to new and more soothing paint, more comfortable chairs and couches have been provided. The family visitation area was also repainted and a reading center and interactive play area were created for younger children to play in and youth who have children here could sit with their child and read them a book. More than 200 books were ordered – 100 in English and 100 in Spanish. Staff have been supportive of this renewed push toward family engagement and a family friendly environments. Staff appreciate the new color schemes and welcoming environment and parents have commented how much easier is it to visit their kids in a more family friendly environment rather than a correctional environment.

Every six weeks, all TJJD education departments participate in a Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) incentive program, which addresses the youth’s individual ability to reach a set of identified expectations and behavior goals. This helps facilitate and shape behavior while building and reinforcing coping skills through targeted skill development. Overall, this offers the students directed practice, staff opportunity for modeling of pro-social skills, and positive reinforcement of targeted progress. The goal is to help youth reduce negative behavior while developing corresponding positive behaviors to build longterm, internalized changes in behavior. Below is a description of the PBIS Incentive Day held agency-wide on September 16, 2016. Gainesville: PBIS is going strong at the Gainesville State School. The last incentive was the largest yet with 68 students participating. The teachers came in early and prepared a home cooked breakfast for the students that included scra...