SOCC PROGRAM IMPROVES KIDS’ LIVES

JASPER – The Strengthening Our Capacity to Care program in Jasper County has been close to Cassandra Ensign’s heart for six years. An officer with the Jasper County Juvenile Probation Office, Ensign’s profession brings her into daily contact with young people whose lives are going down a destructive road. As a new officer six years ago, she decided to do something about it.

 

“I was new to the probation department,” she said. “The Texas Juvenile Probation Commission had mailed out a letter to each county probation department about a pilot program called Strengthening Our Capacity to Care. Jasper and Newton counties were in the pilot program.” The SOCC program was offered through a partnership between Texas Juvenile Probation Commission and Texas Cooperative Extension.

Ensign immediately contacted the Jasper County Extension office and volunteered her services to the program.

She was instrumental in organizing the first SOCC classes in Jasper, working with youthful offenders and their parents. “Originally it was after school with at-risk children,” she said, “a combination of young offenders and at-risk (youth). Some were on full-blown probation.”

Ensign and Gwen Gilford, who was then principal at Jasper Junior High School, have worked with the SOCC program since it began at that school. “We were talking one day and she (Ensign) shared with me about a program for young offenders that was very effective,” Gilford said. By working with representatives from juvenile probation, Extension, Jasper Independent School District and other community organizations, Gilford got the first SOCC program started in Jasper.

Now SOCC is conducted at Rowe Elementary School, where Gilford is principal. When she changed schools two years ago, she brought the program with her.

SOCC, an education program that now works with at-risk fifth- and sixth-graders, is designed to help children change their destructive behavior before they find themselves in the juvenile justice system. Jamie Clark is a school juvenile probation officer who laughs when he explains that, because he divides his time between the school district and the juvenile probation office, his office is in his car.

He also works closely with the SOCC program at Rowe.

He said the young participants are determined to be at-risk through their own behavior. “If their grades are falling; if they cause problems in class; if they have discipline problems …”

The kids are eligible for participation “basically because we see (problem) habits and attitudes and behaviors starting at that age. Something has made an effect on the kids. We try to teach them correct habits,” he said.

And they learn about big concepts, he said, including fairness, respect and the right kind of classroom behavior. “We try to prevent future problems,” Clark said.

“They behave better in class so they learn better,” Gilford added. Dee Lee Smith, Jasper County Extension agent for family and consumer science, came onboard a couple of years after SOCC started and immediately gave her heart to the program too. She had been involved with the SOCC program in Jack County before coming to Jasper, so the “teamwork (on the SOCC program) between Cassandra and me was a natural!” she said.

Because of the change in location and age group, the program has seen some changes since it started. “When I got here, we were doing a program for parents too, at the same time (the SOCC kids were meeting).” As those young participants grew up and left the program, so did their parents, Smith said.

Now, with SOCC as a prevention program conducted at the elementary school during the school day, a parents’ program just isn’t practical. But other changes could be implemented to expand the program, Ensign said. “I’d like to see us do more outdoor-type outings and learn social skills and learn to behave in different environments.”

She tentatively suggested an outing at a restaurant so the kids can learn about manners, then laughed and said neither she nor they were ready for that yet.

However, they are ready for their favorite event – the annual outing to the Ropes Course.

Each year SOCC takes the kids to the Baptist Encampment in Newton, where they have the time of their lives challenging themselves at the Ropes Course. In that intensely-physical event, they learn about team work, self-esteem and stretching their own personal limits.

They also bond with each other, and as a result become much better friends and better able to understand the importance of respect and team work – which are major aspects of character development that SOCC teaches its young participants.

So many students have been positively affected by SOCC that the teachers enthusiastically support it. “This program is really important to us on our campus,” said Christine Gobert, a teacher at Rowe. “Anything we can do to expand the experience in education, we need to do.”

Gilford agreed, and said communication is the key to understanding. “I believe that corporal punishment is a temporary solution to a deeper problem,” she said. “You’ve got to find out what they are upset about. Kids are very honest – once they trust you, they will tell you what is bothering them.

“Once you show them you love them and they can be successful, they will give you their best.”

And that’s what SOCC is all about – children learning the benefits of giving their best to their communities and to themselves.

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