Eighteen graduates of the Shasta County Day Reporting Center, run by GEO Reentry Services, recently celebrated their completion of the reentry program during a special ceremony known as a transition celebration.
The graduates were honored at Elks Hunting Lodge in Redding where local corrections officials—including Chief Probation Officer Tracie Neal—program alumni and participants’ families gathered to show their support.
The DRC, which opened in 2013 in response to California’s AB 109 legislation, provides cognitive behavioral therapy, substance abuse treatment and life training courses that teach positive social skills to prepare participants for life back in their communities.
With the theme of the night, “Attitude Determines Altitude,” graduates shared their experiences from the start of the program, when many questioned why they were enrolled, to the end. One graduate thanked the counselors at the DRC, stating, “Thank you for seeing something in myself that I didn’t see in myself.”
The graduate, a former gang member who is now a cook, wants to become a drug and youth counselor. Other graduates—like the youngest, a 20-year-old man—are looking forward to college.
You can read more about the graduates and the Shasta County DRC at the Redding Record Searchlight, which published a great feature on the graduation ceremony and an editorial on the success of the day reporting center.