How one youth found success at Giddings State School – with the help of caring staff and teachers; DBT and exercising those muscles!

By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications

N.W. was always athletic and fast, and he was fastest when playing football. He played as a boy with his uncle, who coached him on some moves. He played in middle school. He played at his suburban Texas high school, where he was a wide receiver.

His mother and younger sisters often came to cheer him at games. But these happy times evaporated after N.W. got in trouble with the law. A second serious offense committed at age 16, this one for aggravated assault, drew a six-year sentence from a judge, landing him at a secure facility at TJJD.

The regret over that major misstep “eats him up,” he said in an interview recently at Giddings State School. “It’s something I don’t like talking about. What I did. It wasn’t meant to be. I know I can be better. I regret it.”

N.W. had a lot to think about when he arrived at the Giddings campus in 2022. And he still flashed some of the anger that had contributed to his situation, according to teachers and staff who know him. But somehow, he didn’t let his circumstances deflate him. He found not just the motivation to change but the energy and self-possession to grab every opportunity he could.

Recreation Supervisor Brittney Humphries saw his potential when scouting for a new student worker to help the Rec staff.

“He was a positive kid, a leader not a follower. He showed respect to others and to himself,” she said, recalling how she observed him in the café, dorms and at school as part of the screening process for the coveted student worker job.

“I know a lot of the kids we have, when they come in, they easily fall into whatever is going on at the campus, even if it’s something stupid. He did not do that at all. He was his own person and that’s one of the biggest reasons he was chosen,” she said.

“And he’s been excelling ever since.”

****

N.W. grew up in a single-parent home in Texas, with four younger siblings in the house. Humphries believes that the anger he grapples with likely stems from having had heavy responsibilities at a young age, cooking and taking care of those younger siblings while their mother worked to keep the family afloat.

The family managed, but there were struggles. N.W.’s mother worked various jobs that did not come with high salaries. He did well enough in school, but admits that he mostly kept his academics up, encouraged by friends, so he could play football.

When things went sideways for N.W., and he was committed to TJJD, he asked that his mother not visit. She wanted to come, but he didn’t want her to see him incarcerated. That is now among the chief regrets on his young shoulders, because his mother passed away while he was at Giddings State School, about a year ago.

He misses her terribly but has been energized by wanting to honor her memory. One thing she always wanted for him was to see him graduate from high school. He did that, this past spring, opting to take the long route and get the full high school diploma instead of the GED.

Many students at TJJD’s Lone Star High Schools opt for the GED program because they can complete it more quickly, before being released. N.W., with a determinate longer sentence that came with a set period of confinement, gambled he could finish the full high school diploma program, which is equivalent to any public school in Texas.

He thought about his mom and that motivated him. He wanted to get back to his siblings, his aunties, and uncles, and that fueled his desire.

“That’s what made me want to get up every day and keep going, (doing) what she would have wanted me to do,” he said.

But getting that diploma from the Lone Star High School at Giddings was an exercise in tenacity. To pass high school English, he had to learn to write a researched, persuasive essay, something he’d never done before. He credits TJJD teacher Susanna Luviek with helping him meet this challenge. She was encouraging and patient. She broke the task down into parts – topic sentence, context, evidence, explanation.

He wrote a four-page essay about the downside of corporal punishment that nailed the argument. He passionately cites experts who say spanking “increases the risk of a range of negative outcomes, including mental health problems, behavior problems, and lower cognitive ability.” After several paragraphs providing the evidence against corporal punishment, he concludes:

“In light of all the research and information available, parents would be wise to learn other ways to both discipline their children and help them learn from their mistakes.”

Luviek posted N.W.’s work on the wall outside her classroom.

“For every course that you end (finish) you’ve got to write an essay in her class,” he said.  “I was proud of myself.” 

But getting that diploma also meant N.W. had to conquer a class in physics. 

Speaking softly during one of our interviews in the Lone Star High School library at the Giddings campus, he often paused to consider his words. He had an immediate take on physics, however. That was just plain hard. As with the English essay, in physics he did something he said he will do only in a pinch: ask for help. He pushed through that class. He made the A/B honor roll and got his diploma.

Assistant Principal Tracey Walker made sure he and others who graduated slightly off cycle for the graduation ceremony still got pictures in their cap and gown.

****

Speaking of maintaining forward motion, N.W. said he appreciated the opportunity to play on the TAPPS football team at Giddings last season, while he was still enrolled in school. 

It turned out to be a stellar year. The team did exceptionally well in its district competitions and took the district championship. Add one letter jacket to N.W.’s belongings, thanks to a donation from the administrative staff at Giddings, Supt. Bill Parks and Assistant Supt. Robin Motley.

Playing six-man football was “weird,” N.W. said, unlike the full 11-man teams he’d learned. But the team camaraderie meant a lot. It hadn’t been easy to “adapt” to life in a secure facility, he said. Joining the football team gave him a good feeling.

“We had to come together like a family at the end of the day to win the games,” he said. “There were a lot of kids I didn’t know, but after the football season, I knew ‘em.”

N.W. says it wasn’t always easy to adapt to the environment, a new place where he had to make new friends. Like everyone else at Giddings State School, he was also asked to work on the behavior issues that led to his sentence.

That meant completing the treatment program for capitol offenders and the drug use program.  And it meant participating in DBT groups and learning some of the skills outlined by Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which is being infused across all activities at TJJD campuses.  

DBT, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy, teaches people skills they can leverage to better control their emotions, relate empathetically and authentically to others, tolerate unavoidable distressing situations, settle disputes and accept circumstances that they cannot change.

Through DBT, TJJD youth learn to think through situations, adopt more measured reactions and compromise around situations they find challenging.

N.W. said he was already familiar with some of the concepts, such as stopping and taking a pause to assess when you’re getting emotionally hot during an argument. In DBT, STOP stands for Stop, Take a step back, Observe and Proceed mindfully.

Another DBT approach that he said he found helpful is called the DEAR MAN technique. DEAR MAN — an acronym for Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, Mindfully ask, Appear confident and Negotiate – is designed to help people hone their interpersonal skills and specifically, to make an effective request of another person.

“I feel like all the DBT Skills helped me in a certain type of way,” he said. “I know what’s right and what’s wrong.  I already know what to do, basically.  I just sometimes I implement the skills in different types of situations. Say for instance, I’m in an argument, I use the DEAR MAN skills.”

These practical lessons in social skills are aimed at alleviating an individual’s psychological pain and helping them develop better social interactions. It has a multiplier effect in a residential setting, calming the environment and creating a positive feedback loop. (To learn more please see TJJD’s Texas Model webpage.)

For N.W., keeping busy also helped sustain him. Before and after graduating, he completed several vocational classes and picked up some vocational certificates, including two NCCER certifications in construction.

Musing about who has helped him at Giddings he says “my JCOs” and the Recreation Department staff, especially “Ms. Humphries, Mr. Truesdale, Ms. Searcy.”

“That’s my job. That’s what I worked at. I’ve been working recreation since I got here. I think Ms. Humphries saw me and wanted to help me, like I was a good kid or whatever, in her eyes,” he says. “She was like, let me help this kid and we’ve been close ever since.”

The student worker job in recreation, in which N.W. helps lead daily exercises for the youth, played into his natural leadership tendencies, Humphries said. “He has a lot of pull with his peers and in a good way.”

N.W. explains that he has enjoyed bringing along kids who may never have exercised much and demonstrating calisthenics and other moves for them.

Now, as N.W. approaches his release date this fall when he turns 19, the age when youths must move out of TJJD, he and Humphries are busy working on his resume and plans for work. He’s applying for a scholarship, through a TJJD trust fund, that can help pay for his tuition at a technical school. He meets the criteria for the scholarship as a youth who’s lost parental support and has completed high school.

He wants to be a long-distance truck driver, a job in which he can see the country. Does he know that this is an in-demand job that can pay quite well? “Yeah,” he says with the hint of a smile, “I heard.”

N.W. recalls that coming to Giddings was a daunting and deflating experience. He found himself in a group of kids he’d never met, following routines that were new. But he has some advice for others who find themselves in a similar situation.

“It’s not over with, you can still do something with your life.”