'Invaluable': Giving Travis County teens accused of family violence an alternative to jail

If you need help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 800-799-7233.

TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) -- In an email titled "Letter of Gratitude," a Travis County woman wrote a two-page-long "thank you" for the help her nephew got through a new initiative called the Travis County Transformation Project (TCTP).

“I am sharing with those reading this message my recent experience when my family, sister and nephew obtained the invaluable help they needed to achieve harmony and in family coexistence at home," the letter begins.

It outlines the case of a woman and her son. They immigrated to Texas "looking for a horizon of citizen security they could not have in our country." The teen struggled with autism and bipolar disorder; his single mother was unable to afford proper care.

Eventually, things came to a head.

"Violence took over the family nucleus and, blinded by his mental problems, he attacked his mother, unloading on her the problems accumulated by a child who dreamed of having better things in another country," the letter reads.

Police were called, and that's when the Travis County Transformation Project offered the teen and his mother a choice: juvenile detention or a chance at something else — a stay in a diversion-focused shelter equipped with the resources to help him stabilize.

Project details

The TCTP launched last year as a pilot, born from District Attorney José Garza reviewing statistics showing that between 2010 and 2020, assault family violence was the most common crime teens got arrested for in Travis County.

"What the impact is of juveniles entering criminal justice system, it sharply increases the likelihood they'll commit new crimes in the future," Garza said.

Before the program started, the average recidivism rate for teens arrested for this crime was 50%. So far, 32 eligible teens have opted to participate in the diversion initiative, and only one has been re-arrested, according to the DA's office.

These are kids who are living in very challenging situations, often with parents who have unmet mental health needs, unmet substance abuse needs and sometimes food and job insecurity.

How it works

When police show up to a scene where a family member has reported a teen for some kind of family violence assault — essentially, any physical or serious emotional attack or threat that happens within a family unit — an officer will call an on-call prosecutor with the DA's office if they think the teen is eligible for the TCTP.

Right now, the program has the funding to serve 15 and 16-year-olds only, and teens are not eligible to enter the program if they used a gun in any part of the attack.

The officer talks through the case with the on-call prosecutor, and if the juvenile meets the criteria, the teen's caregiver can make the final decision to enter them into the program or send them into juvenile detention.

The teams that make this possible

The diversion aspect consists of two parts: individualized care for the teen and separate specialized care for the family unit.

"If not me, then who, and if not now, then when?" said Courtney Robinson, the founder and CEO of the Excellence and Advancement Project, the team that tackles the whole-family portion of the diversion project, about her calling for this work. "We take an ecosystem approach. So we think about the youth, but then there's also family and school and community."

Her team meets first with the teen's family separately from the teen, while the teen receives their own care at LifeWorks.

"It's really important to get to a place within ourselves where we can engage productively and move forward," said Courtney Seals, the chief program officer of Lifeworks. "I think the other piece you can't not think about in these situations is the impact of trauma."

The setup at LifeWorks is meant to be a comfortable, safe space focused on rehabilitation.

"Clothing closet, a kitchen with a person who's cooking food who really goes out of her way to understand each person's needs and wants by way of their dietary preference," Seals said. "We have needed this for a really long time."

Limitations

While advocates commend what the program has to offer and the DA's office has noted successes, the initiative has its limitations.

As aforementioned, if a teen uses a gun in their assault family violence case, they're not eligible, given the gravity of that component, meaning there is not currently a diversion-type option for teens engaged in gun violence.

Scope is the biggest limitation right now. Unless the teens in question are 15 or 16, they're not eligible, due to the current grant funding. There was enough funding to help 33 families in the first year and the county has a budget to serve another 30 in the project's second year.

The DA's office said more than 50% of the roughly 200 teens who received referrals to the program were under 15 and therefore had to be turned away.

Moving forward, the University of Texas is evaluating the effectiveness of the program to determine its long-term viability. Researchers will look at the data after the second full year of the project, which will be around next fall.

If the program continues to demonstrate success, the DA's office hopes to expand the program to juveniles younger than 15.