Raves, Rants & Roses

RAVE: Congratulations to Tyler’s Municipal Court on the recent news that the Partners For Youth program is a finalist in the National League of Cities’ 2008 Awards for Municipal Excellence. Cam McCabe, Municipal Court Administrator, and the Municipal Court employees have worked hard to provide this alternative program for the youth of our city. Tyler’s administrators, mayor and city councilmen have been supporters from the beginning and reflect the cooperative spirit of Tyler: people working together to find alternative solutions to problems.

It has been an honor for Parents Anonymous of Tyler Inc. to be part of this collaboration and to see firsthand how lives of adolescents and teens have changed. Teens come to the program with problems they find insurmountable: problems that have resulted in changed and bad behaviors and in misdirection in their lives. To see these teens change and move down the road to productive citizenship is rewarding beyond measure.

One youth, when asked to write what the Partners For Youth Parents Anonymous class meant to him wrote, “It means I can change. It has taught me that I should always think before I act and that my friends do not dictate my behavior.”

No matter what the announcement is in November regarding the awarding of the prizes, the city of Tyler is a winner for recognizing the problems of the youth seen in the Municipal Court and for supporting an innovative and ground-breaking solution. Our hats are off to them.

Julie Gibson
Executive Director
Parents Anonymous of Tyler, Inc.