Equity Seeker
I currently serve as the Racial and Social Justice Officer at Travis County Juvenile Probation Department. In this role I focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives for youth, families, employeee’s, and victims involved with the juvenile legal system. Subsequently, I instruct diversity didactics and seminars for the APA Accredited Predoctoral interns, and conduct culturally specific group treatment with youth (R.A.A.Y.C.E.).
R.A.A.Y.C.E
Reframing African American Youth Cultural Empowerment (R.A.A.Y.C.E.) Groups
R.A.A.Y.C.E is a culturally specific, trauma informed group intervention for Black youth involved with the juvenile legal system. It can also be used as a racial pride group for young Black teens. The CBT based educational process group was developed as a result of research revealing that Black justice involved youth demonstrate “Mis Education Pro Black Racial Identity Attitudes” (Worrell, et.al, 2014; Jenkins & Lewis, under review). In other terms, they love being Black, but their association with Blackness is tied with negative stereotypes. These results indicate that Black youth could benefit from a group that promotes positive racial socialization. The group was initially developed and critiqued by experts in multicultural psychology at the Psychological Summer Institute (PSI) through the Minority Fellowship Program (photographed on the left). R.A.A.Y.C.E Groups were first implemented in 2019 by Dr. Jasmine Jenkins and Dr. Alexis Lewis at Travis County Juvenile Probation Department. Program evaluation and manual publication coming soon.
