County Juvenile Detention Center adopts screening program

A traumatic brain injury can lead to a life of crime. That's what some studies suggest and that's why a doctor developed a program to help treat adults.

A similar program is now being used at the El Paso County Juvenile Detention Center to help kids.

Some studies show that a traumatic brain injury can lead to violent behavior or impulsiveness and that's how some people find themselves in jail.

Dr. Wayne Gordon from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine has been studying this for years and created a treatment program to help adults who have suffered a traumatic brain injury.

At a conference last year he met the El Paso County Juvenile Detention Center's Director of Probation Services Kim Shumate.

"She thought that some of the things that she was seeing in terms of the interventions we had developed for adults with traumatic brain injury would work for the kids she was working with who are on probation in El Paso. So we sent her all of our treatment manuals and she used them to create this program," said Gordon.

Shumate named it the Emotional Regulation Program and it lasts for 12 weeks.

"The program is geared towards kids that have been screened in with the possibility of a traumatic brain injury, or those kids that have been charged with a violent offense," she said.

Once a week the juveniles receiveone to two hours of treatment in group session.

"They learn how to regulate their emotions, to identify what they're feeling and to develop strategies to help them stop and think to make better decisions, and to be more of aware of consequences and outcomes of the decisions that they make," said Shumate.

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County Juvenile Detention Center adopts screening program