Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 6
Number 6, consider and take appropriate action on the following: a, recognize the manor independent school district decker middle school, the girl challenge after school program that is take sill dated by the Travis County sheriff's office, community outreach unit, and b, recognize the local teens who participated in the program during the 2010-2011 school year.
welcome to all of you and we appreciate your patience today.
>> good morning.
how are y'all doing?
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
I work in the community outreach services unit of the sheriff's office.
and as you can see, I have my seven girls with me.
beginning of last school year I decided to create an ongoing program via the sheriff's office to work with kids and manor independent school district had reached out to us in the past to come and do more activities and be more involved with their school district so I thought that would be a great opportunity to launch my idea.
so I met with school administrators and manor i.s.d.
has a -- I guess you could say it's -- student and familyly support services.
I met with them and they helped identify along with principal and staff seven amazing girls to be in my group and those are the ladies you see before us.
and part of the programming, the way that I envisioned it would be composed of three main components.
skills, creative thinking or self-empowerment and leadership so that's broken up to self-awareness and life skills.
and in that component we do different activities that address self-esteem, healthy relationships and behaviors and career goals and mentoring and have guest speakers in to be role models for the girls.
the second component of the program is community action and leadership, and through that piece we do a lot of community service volunteer hours.
it's to affect social change through the development of action plans that is something we're going to expand on more next year, but this past between during teen dating violence awareness month they created posters to put in the schools and different things to create awareness in their school community.
the third piece to the program is a creative initiative.
I myself am an artist and I know that doing things through creative process sometimes really expands the mind and actions so we do different activities that address body image and self-esteem, dating violence, pop media culture messages.
we've done a few other activities.
we did a shoe box activity that talked about how others view you versus how you see yourself and that was sort of one of our intro activities we did which was really great.
then the objectives for our program that I have established are to improve the girls' self awareness and self-esteem, foster communication skills and to reduce girls at risk behaviors.
and I really am proud to say for myself and each and every one of them I think we reached every objective on that list.
and then just to explain how we meet, the school district was kind enough to kind of allow me the after school hours to meet with them every Wednesday for about two and a half hours.
so we meet every Wednesday during the school year there at the campus via their after school programs. And this summer it's been challenging, but we've done a few activities but we all miss ear other.
we're going to try to work on some more community service items this summer.
that is kind of a nutshell of my program.
>> that's a great initiative and, of course, I know the manor i.s.d.
program, we have an outreach program that comes under the sheriff, you and kelly page and I think have done a wonderful job working with the youth and these young ladies that you have brought before us today.
and, of course, maybe the young ladies would like to say a word.
I understand they have great communicative skills they've been able to acquire under this outreach program.
maybe they would like to say something and tell us their names and stuff like that if they feel up to it.
but we're really glad to see you and recognize you for what you are doing because it's a great effort that you have employed and embraced in this particular outreach setting.
>> if I might take the opportunity to introduce them and then they could speak.
in the back we are jennifer serrano and casey and rosie and to my right is kaylin and marisa.
>> how are y'all doing?
>> I know they are trying to act shy.
>> I would like to mention that manor i.s.d.
has recently recognized nicole as community volunteer of the year.
>> all right!
>> do you want to talk about the program?
marisa, you are never short on words.
>> well, it's been good.
it's fun.
and it actually has changed the way that I act.
because, you know, I've been -- I had really -- my behavior hasn't been really good, but since I've been in this group I have known how to control myself in how I act.
>> great.
>> how does Commissioner Davis go about getting one of those beautiful t-shirts you have on?
>> I had a few small child's in my office.
we can stretch them.
and I am planning to expand this coming school year.
I want to stick with the same group of girls.
part of my intent is a lot of the mentoring in the community I guess involvement that I've had via the sheriff's office has been great but I found for me I wanted to make a personal investment in each of these kids and not just see you one semester.
I told them once you get to college, you are going to have to take care of me when you grow up.
so I'm planning to add hopefully three other girls.
>> girls, you are her retirement plan.
>> they are.
and we're possibly hoping another officer in my unit to do a boys version of the same program.
>> right.
that is great.
>> good luck to all of you.
thanks for coming down.
>> we would like to give you a round of applause.
>> [applause]
>> thank you for coming down.
hang in there.
>> I'm sorry, Commissioners, I want to ask if you had a moment if you would oblige a picture.
I know they would love it for your scrap books.
>> are you all going to use any sparklers this fourth of July?
>> no.
>> no.
>> so you need us down front?
>> if you don't mind for a moment, please.
thank you so much.
>> thank you.
>> congratulations.
thank you all.
good luck to you.
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