Brownwood’s Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex, a facility within the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, is dedicated to caring for the youth within the system and promoting public safety. TJJD has re-imagined how its system works, implementing trauma-informed corrections across the state guided by the central principle of putting kids first.

Daniel Nix has worked at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex since 2013 and took over as superintendent two months ago. Nix recently shared information about the facility as well as the measures being taken at Ron Jackson to aid youth in their efforts to get back on track.

“Ron Jackson is a co-ed facility,” Nix said. “We are the only intake facility in the state for high restriction. What that means is male youth come to us, they stay with us for about three weeks, and then they transfer to a different facility. As far as females go, we have a long history of being a female state school. We are the only high restriction female state school in the state. What that means is we get kids ages 12 to 19 that come to us and they go through a lot of specialized treatment. A lot of them struggle with drug addiction, we get kids from traumatic backgrounds, as well as kids from broken homes. We do a lot to provide alcohol and other drug treatment, and they do get anger and aggression therapy which we call ART. It’s a trauma informed therapy to help them rework how they process some of those emotions. We provide them a lot of specialized treatment while they’re here at our facility.

Regarding the importance of the extracurricular programs put in place at Ron Jackson, Nix said, “A lot of statistics show youth, ages 12-19, when they use their leisure or recreation time in a negative way, that’s when they’re most at risk. So by adding some of those new programs at Ron Jackson we’ve seen a huge decrease in our negative behavior.

“We try to have a family approach, so when a lot of our kids come in they’re connected to us as adults. We house quite a few females and we do lots of activities with them. We try to offer the whole population the chance to pick what they go to because everybody’s different and has preferences. A lot of our programs are really designed to address why they’re here to begin with, and the root cause of that – what trauma they’ve been in, how can we address that trauma and provide them tools to be successful when they go back to the community.”

Among the activities are a Christmas play that is currently in the works, improv night each Tuesday, a garden club, and the PAWS animal program. Plus the facility features a gymnasium, full-sized heated indoor pool, an aerobic room. In the classroom, where high school diplomas and GEDs are striven for, wood shop, welding, cosmetology, computer skills, agriculture training, restaurant certification, CPR and first aid training are offered through the school, which features Helen Spearman as principal.

Nix shared a success story of someone formerly at Ron Jackson.

“A kid that I had when I was a case manager actually used to go off campus,” Nix said. “She was so safe, got her all of her treatment, so we would take her to work, and she used to work at Ag-Mart. She volunteered her time at Ag-Mart and some of it went to community service hours and some of the hours she got paid for. Then she would come back and finish out school or whatever else she had for the day. She left us and went back to Houston where she’s from, and she is now a vet tech. She took a lot of the skills that she learned with our PAWS program and used that to develop an actual plan to be successful. She does a lot of the service at some of the animal shelters in Houston now.

“A lot of folks know about our PAWS program because we adopt a lot of dogs out and we partner with the animal shelter here in Brownwood. We’ve got quite a few kids that will come right in and go straight to the PAWS program. Something about pairing an animal with a human, you learn a lot about empathy, responsibility, taking care of others, and it’s always been really successful for us.”

Ron Jackson will be hosting a job fair from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 16 through the Brownwood Chamber of Commerce at the Depot. On-site interviews will be available for those interested in becoming a youth development coach – for those at least 23 years of age with a high school diploma or GED – and there are other openings as well. Nix stated Ron Jackson employees 250-300 staff members and houses between 150-200 kids.

“We offer all sorts of employments, not just coaches,” Nix said. “Coaches are the most rewarding because they get to work directly with the kids, but we are also hiring some teachers, we have a few positions open. We have a full service medical department and a couple of nurse positions open. We hire part-time employees, we hire teachers, we hire lot of staff to help make this place better. Ron Jackson has a ton of programs to address the kids’ needs, as well as make sure the kids are supervised and safe. What we have been working incredibly hard on is making sure our staff members are safe. It’s a really fine balance to make sure we provide appropriate programming for the kids and also make the sure the staffers are completely safe while they’re with us.”

Nix stated Ron Jackson recently joined the Chamber of Commerce and is looking forward to sharing its message with community.

“We want to get our name out and share how we’re trying to become a better agency,” Nix said. “We’ve been doing a lot of public events. I cannot remember a time that RJ has been as actively involved in the community. We just did Christmas Under the Starts, we did Crafts with Kids, we did a float for the parade and our kids decorated the float. We’re very activity driven, we want the kids involved, we want them knowing what they do matters and it gives them validation.”

Nix also shared the most rewarding aspects of his job.

“As a Brownwoodian it’s important to me that we give back to our community,” Nix said. “The most rewarding aspect of this job is taking care of the staff that I can control. I want them to know they are cared for, they come to a place of employment that cares about them. The most rewarding thing for me is bringing folks on to the team that want to be here, that consistently volunteer and come in and help even when it’s just a volunteer basis just because they want to see the kids be successful, and giving back to them and let them know that they’re wanted.”

For more information about the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex, call (325) 641-4200.