By Benjamin Chambers, July 28 2011
I met Emmitt Hayes about 10 years ago, when I first learned about Reclaiming Futures. He had led Travis County, TX through a project funded inthe mid-1990s by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) -- a project that laid the groundwork for Reclaiming Futures. (Interestingly, Travis County, TX is one of our newest sites.)
In the decade since, he's continued to serve Reclaiming Futures as a valued advisor, sharing -- with humor and humility -- his uncompromising commitment to youth and famlies caught up in the juvenile justice system.
When I saw him at the Reclaiming Futures Leadership Institute in Miami in May 2011, I asked him to talk with me a little about what he saw as the most important next step in implementing Reclaming Futures. He reflected briefly on his thirty years of working with youth in the justice system and observed that family engagement was the key to success when he started, and it's still the key, despite years of focus on evidence-based practices in treatment.
But heck, I'll let him tell it. After all, he's a lot more inspiring than I:
Updated: March 21 2018