What We Heard
The short version of what Ellis County said, decided, and ranked.
This report was created through a virtual session followed by a full-day in-person workshop hosted by the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health to address the needs of youth with behavioral health challenges who become involved with the juvenile justice system. It draws on the Sequential Intercept Model to support communities in identifying strategies to divert youth from the justice system and into treatment. The two sessions brought together 79 stakeholders from across systems, including mental health, substance use, schools, juvenile probation, courts, and law enforcement, to map resources, gaps, and opportunities at each point a youth intersects with the justice system.
Through these sessions, the stakeholders developed priority action plans to improve coordination and services. These plans focus on four key priorities for change:
Priority 1: Interagency Communication and Collaboration
Priority 2: Juvenile Specialty Court / Docket
Priority 3: Coordinated Resource Awareness and Connection
Priority 4: Expanded Mental Health Training
The report and this toolkit provide a detailed blueprint for Ellis County stakeholders seeking to reduce unnecessary justice involvement for youth with behavioral health needs. As stakeholders move forward to implement the identified changes, it will be crucial for each action team to organize and track its steps and to coordinate with the other action teams. The Judicial Commission on Mental Health will provide ongoing technical assistance as stakeholders review current laws and best practices to implement the plans.
Factors that support the success of this process
Communities that remain engaged and make significant progress toward their goals have key commonalities. Specifically, they draw on the participation from people with lived experience of mental health and behavioral health challenges or justice involvement, as well as their family members. Successful communities also create formal leadership teams to drive priorities forward. They make use of data to identify progress, adapt their plans, and optimize services. They also know the law as it relates to youth mental health and juvenile justice involvement.
The Power of Lived Experience
Family members of youth with mental and behavioral health challenges play a crucial role by providing other family members:
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Emotional support
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Shared knowledge
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Practical assistance
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Connection to people with resources
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Opportunities and communities of support
Having a family partner who is also addressing similar challenges helps other families to better understand behaviors, navigate complex systems, and advocate for their children. In Texas, Certified Family Partners receive training and certification, and they adhere to a common set of ethics and practices that empower other families to make the best decisions for themselves and their loved ones. Most, if not all, Local Mental Health Authorities in Texas employ Certified Family Partners, providing the families of younger clients with this crucial support.
Additionally, Certified Family Partners often play a key role in reducing stigma around mental health. Many families are hindered in seeking help for their children or loved ones because of misunderstandings about mental health and the shame they may experience when their children exhibit destructive or alarming behavior.
Family Partners help parents and caregivers know they aren’t alone. Further, Family Partners provide key insights for stakeholders across the systems that help shape the community’s efforts to improve outcomes for youth. The JCMH process always centers lived experience in the mapping process, ensuring that stakeholders hear from families and adults with lived experience of juvenile justice involvement.
In addition to Certified Family Partners, Texas also certifies peer providers to assist people with mental and substance use challenges. In Texas, the certifications include Mental Health Peer Specialists and Recovery Support Peer Specialists. A growing number of peer specialists also obtain certification as Re-Entry Peer Specialists who have lived experience with incarceration as well as recovery from mental health and/or substance use challenges. Re-Entry Peer Specialists can play important roles at any point at which young adults intersect with the adult justice system.
Several organizations and resources provide helpful guidance:
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PeerForce serves as a hub for peers and family partners in Texas, collaborating with communities and organizations to advance and broaden the peer career field. They provide assistance to prospective employers on how to implement peer services and provide training for prospective peers.
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Texas Certification Board certifies various types of peer specialists, including Certified Family Partners.
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SAMHSA is the federal agency that for decades has worked to promote peers in leadership roles.
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Philadelphia’s DBHIDS Peer Support Toolkit
Continued Cross-System Collaboration
Experience shows that the counties generating enduring results in their system change efforts are those that create formal coordinating groups, such as the Ellis County Behavioral Health Leadership Team, that facilitates and guides countywide justice and behavioral health cross-systems stakeholder planning. This is a recommendation of the National Center for State Courts, which issued a set of Juvenile Justice Mental Health Diversion Guidelines and Principles.
Consistent with the recommendations by the NCSC, Ellis County’s commitment to “formalized, consistent, and sustained collaboration between the juvenile justice system, mental health agencies, substance use professionals, schools, law enforcement, and other agencies” sets it on an ideal path to achieving the goals that arise from the SIM Mapping process.
In practice, this looks like the team of multi-agency stakeholders taking the lead in designing, implementing, and monitoring mental health-focused diversion efforts. Consistent and committed representation from across sectors, including behavioral health, school districts, juvenile probation, the judiciary, defense attorneys, and law enforcement, along with people who have current knowledge of adolescent mental health needs, evidence-based assessments, and treatments, will support this effort.
In addition to advancing the priorities and action plans created by the community through the youth mental health and juvenile justice mapping process, the Behavioral Health Leadership Team might also advance the additional Juvenile Justice Mental Health Diversion Guidelines and Principles including:
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Employ standardized mental health screeners and assessments.
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Develop a continuum of evidence-based treatment and practices.
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Commit to trauma-informed care.
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Ensure fair access to diversion opportunities and effective treatment.
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Maximize diversion and minimize intervention for youth with low risk to re-offend.
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Provide specialized training for intake or probation officers.
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Measure program integrity and diversion outcomes.
County stakeholders might also consider reaching out to other communities that have Behavioral Health Leadership Teams such as Texoma, Dallas, Denton, and more to share information and best practices. This list includes only a handful of communities, as many counties across the state have either launched or are initiating their own coordinating bodies. For technical assistance or connections to other communities, reach out to the Judicial Commission on Mental Health.
Effective Use of Data
Effective use of data improves decision-making across the spectrum of intercepts from community and school-based supports through juvenile probation. Strategic data gathering and analysis also helps the community to track progress toward its goals. Communities that are adept at data analysis are also more likely to develop innovations previously unimagined.
Some key questions communities might consider as they seek to measure the impact of their initiatives include:
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Number of youth involved at the various intercepts,
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Key characteristics, such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scores, whether they are current clients of local mental health authorities, foster care involvement, and more,
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The key reason youth became justice-involved, or
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Measures of change as youth engage in programming.
These are only a handful of questions. As communities develop their priorities and actions plans, they might decide on the measures that best demonstrate progress toward their goals.
Understanding Current Statutes and Best Practices
As communities map gaps and opportunities at each intercept, it is especially important to understand juvenile justice laws and responsibilities. Oftentimes, compliance with existing statute is hindered by the lack of cross-system collaboration and a lack of clarity about which entity is responsible for the law’s implementation. Courts are uniquely positioned in this regard to bring together stakeholders and mobilize cooperative efforts to implement the law collaboratively on behalf of children.
The Judicial Commission on Mental Health has released the Fourth Edition of the Texas Juvenile Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Law Bench Book, which provides community and juvenile justice stakeholders with a comprehensive overview of best practices and existing laws at each point at which children and youth intersect or are at risk of intersecting with the juvenile justice system.
How the community ranked its priorities
Following the discussion on gaps and opportunities, the participants brainstormed priorities that might address gaps and help the community seize opportunities. They produced dozens of suggestions. They were then asked to rate the priorities on a one-to-five scale:
5 = Idea would have tremendous impact, and we should work on it immediately
1= Might be a good idea, but not a high priority at this time
After five rounds of community members reading and rating the ideas, participants identified a list of high/immediate, moderate/near future, and priorities for later.
Participants were given three adhesive dots to vote for their top priorities. They wrote their initials on the ideas that they were willing to give their time and effort to make a reality in Ellis County. At the end of this process, four key priorities emerged.
Priority 1: Interagency Communication and Collaboration
Priority 2: Juvenile Specialty Court/Docket
Priority 3: Coordinated Resource Awareness and Connection
Priority 4: Expanded Mental Health Training
Recommended next steps
The Youth SIM Mapping process serves as a springboard to continued and enduring collaboration between stakeholders across all intercepts. To create the systemic changes outlined in the Ellis County goals, a whole community approach is required. To ensure that the community stays engaged, the following next steps are highly recommended.
Strengthen Action Team Planning
The most effective way to make progress and increase communitywide motivation is through action planning. During the in-person workshop, Ellis County created four priority teams as well as priority champions. These key stakeholders are responsible for moving the action plans forward. To ensure continued momentum:
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Clarify the Role of Priority Champions: These individuals assume responsibility for scheduling meetings, tracking commitments, checking on progress, and overseeing the various tasks associated with the action plan. This does not mean that the priority champions do all the work, which is often how collaborations devolve. Instead, the champions facilitate the discussions and check-in sessions, ensuring that participants know their roles and have a clear sense of the tasks necessary to move toward each benchmark. They check in on progress, asking that people honor their commitments or bring roadblocks to the full group to allow for mutual problem solving.
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Enlist People with Lived Experience: Few things can motivate a group more than working side by side with families and young adults who have had to navigate the juvenile justice system. They bring an indispensable clarity about the urgency of the work, and their perspective will unleash ideas, strategies, and insights.
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Schedule Meetings and Find Meeting Locations Well in Advance: Effective action teams jointly schedule regular meetings and set meeting locations well in advance. In this way, people know their deadlines for tasks. They also have the meetings on their calendars. Priority champions send reminders of upcoming meetings as well as tasks to be completed by that meeting.
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Chart Progress: Every action team created a workplan, which included tasks and benchmarks at three-, six-, and twelve-month intervals. These plans may change and evolve, but it is essential that the teams have an updated version of the plan ready at every meeting. All progress should be noted, and future benchmarks clearly identified. In this way, the community can chart progress, which builds momentum. It also facilitates learning, as the team can evaluate the factors that are contributing to plans being completed or not.
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Coordinate with All Teams: Building on its strong track record in cross-sector collaboration, county leaders will realize success far more quickly and effectively by incorporating action team captains into existing formal and informal planning discussions. This allows the full community to engage with the work of all teams, which is essential as the leadership seeks to obtain funding, develop data sharing agreements, and respond to emerging priorities.
It is also helpful to recognize the leadership and efforts of community members who give their time, resources, and efforts to create system change in Ellis County. Award ceremonies, recognition in the local press, and other creative ways to recognize people will build motivation and propel local leadership. The community might also consider orienting new elected officials to the work of the community, inviting them to be part of these efforts.
Prioritize Implementation of Current Statutes
Many statutes are difficult to implement as they require coordination between multiple agencies, and the statutes do not designate the lead agency. Further, the laws require cross-sector planning and resource allocation. The formal and informal structures of cross-system collaboration in Ellis County are ideal venues to assess the extent to which the systems of youth mental health and juvenile justice are aligned with current statutes.
As stated in the background section of this report, the Judicial Commission on Mental Health recently released the Fourth Edition of the Texas Juvenile Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Law Bench Book, which provides community and juvenile justice stakeholders with a comprehensive overview of best practices and existing laws at each point at which children intersect or are at risk of intersecting with the juvenile justice system. For a comprehensive overview of the Texas juvenile justice system, statutes and case law, refer to Texas Juvenile Law, 9 th Edition, by Professor Robert O. Dawson.
Remain Current with the Latest Research and Best Practices
The field of youth justice is constantly evolving, with new research and promising innovations emerging regularly. Moreover, every time a county such as Ellis brings together stakeholders from across systems to create systemic change for youth, these communities develop their own unique approaches to common problems. Remaining current on the latest research is key. Of equal importance is connecting with other communities across Texas who have also completed their own youth SIM mapping.
The Judicial Commission on Mental Health is your resource for continued technical assistance (TA). The TA site includes training and education, a video library, and peer networking resources. You can contact JCMH directly with questions and requests for assistance.
It is important to recognize that the resources currently available in the county represent only a portion of the evidence-based and promising practices that could significantly improve outcomes for youth. Expanding awareness beyond existing services can help communities identify meaningful opportunities for system improvement.
One useful tool to support this effort is the resource inventory developed by the Judges and Psychiatrists Leadership Initiative (JPLI). This inventory provides a structured way for communities to assess not only what services exist, but also their capacity for innovation and the strength of cross-system coordination necessary to implement new practices. It encourages communities to move beyond a static list of resources and toward an ongoing strategic assessment of resources, gaps, and opportunities.
Using a tool like this can help the community:
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Identify gaps in evidence-based practices
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Assess provider capacity and readiness for partnership
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Strengthen connections across agencies
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Prioritize areas for investment and system development
By combining an updated resource map with a more comprehensive inventory of services and practices, the community can better align its efforts with proven approaches and position itself to achieve stronger outcomes for youth.
How this process worked
Young people with mental health and behavioral challenges are all too often referred to the juvenile justice system. These challenges may show up first in behavior at school or within overwhelmed families with little knowledge and support to help them address mental illness effectively. Time and again, these early interactions lead to multiple juvenile justice referrals and later adult criminal justice system involvement. All systems are impacted, from families to schools, mental health, child welfare, police, courts, juvenile detention, probation, etc. It takes everyone coming together to create a system that prevents referrals to the juvenile justice system and ensures the best outcomes for youth.
This Youth Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) Mapping process is based on the Sequential Intercept Model, developed by Mark R. Munetz, M.D., and Patricia A. Griffin, Ph.D., in conjunction with SAMHSA’s GAINS Center, which has traditionally focused on the adult criminal justice system. Since its creation, it has been used by communities to assess available resources, determine gaps in services, and plan for change. During these workshops, the community develops a map illustrating how youth with behavioral health needs move through the justice system. The workshop allows participants to identify opportunities for collaboration to prevent further penetration into the justice system.
Texas communities recognized the relevance of this collaborative process to youth service systems as well as adults and began to request workshops focused on youth. The Judicial Commission on Mental Health (JCMH) participated in a statewide Youth SIM Workgroup to review existing adult SIM mapping processes and develop materials and workshop content tailored to the unique needs of Texas youth. This work began with the understanding that youth are different from adults. Studies show that brains are not fully developed until an individual is well into their 20s. Unlike adults, younger brains do not weigh consequences of actions as effectively and exhibit less impulse control. Executive function, which includes flexible thinking, self-control, and access to working memory that aids decision making, is not fully formed. In short, kids are kids, not adults.
Behavioral health challenges are the perfect storm for youth. Without the right system of support and treatments, they are far more likely to engage in behaviors and actions that are impulsive and often dangerous. Past trauma causes and exacerbates these challenges. The majority of youth in the juvenile justice system have histories of trauma, including physical and sexual abuse. Removal from home, school, and prosocial relationships is also traumatizing. It is absolutely
Youth Sequential Intercept Model Mapping Process
The youth workshop unites a wide array of community stakeholders, all of whom are dedicated to transforming the systems that impact young people with behavioral health challenges. By design, participants engage with people who work in unfamiliar systems. Juvenile court judges work alongside mental health providers or school superintendents. Parents brainstorm possibilities with police and probation officers. People with lived experience of juvenile justice involvement and their caregivers help to frame the discussion.
The mapping process is shaped with a planning team of local stakeholders who set the goals and principles that guide the process. The planning team also mobilizes a broad spectrum of community members from across the county or region representing parts of the system that can make a significant difference in the life of a young person at risk of or currently involved with the juvenile justice system.
The Judicial Commission on Mental Health (JCMH) process includes a virtual mapping workshop followed by a full-day in-person workshop. During the virtual session, participants meet key community leaders who can speak to the unique challenges they face and innovations they have tried at various points when youth are at risk of or currently involved with the juvenile justice system. Participants then identify the resources already available within the community that could provide better outcomes for youth in other parts of the system, especially if the resources were better coordinated and optimized. Next, the community identifies significant gaps and sparks discussion about possible innovations to address those gaps. The participants begin to sort through the possible opportunities to see if there may be an emerging consensus behind certain priorities.
The process began in Ellis County with a virtual session on May 14, 2026, through which community members identified resources, gaps, and opportunities to address those gaps. In preparation for the virtual session, a survey and interviews with key experts in the community helped to identify the resources and processes they use to address youth mental and behavioral health challenges. Recordings of interviews with key community informants were shared with other participants to help orient them to each intercept.
Following the virtual session, a broad spectrum of stakeholders convened for a one-day in-person workshop. Participants reviewed the resources and opportunities identified in the virtual sessions. They then generated ideas for system improvement and sorted through the ideas for impact and feasibility. The design ensures that community priorities that have the greatest buy-in from community members across systems rise to the top. These key ideas become the community priorities, and participants then work as teams to develop realistic action plans. Before leaving, participants identify priority champions who assume responsibility for ensuring that the teams continue to work on the priorities.
The in-person workshop for Ellis County took place June 3, 2026. Following the workshop, the community has continued to work on their priority action plans. They also met virtually with JCMH to review and edit a draft of this report and again three months following the in-person workshop to check in on progress. Throughout this process and thereafter, the community may request free-of-charge technical assistance from JCMH.
