Cynthia Mendiola is a supervising U. S. Probation Officer with the United States Probation and Pretrial Services Office in the Western District of Texas.  She graduated from NIC's Offender Workforce Development Specialist (OWDS) training held in New Mexico during the Spring of 2007.  NIC asked Cynthia to tell us about what her and the Western District of Texas are doing in the area of offender workforce development.  Cynthia writes:

"As the point of contact, I have trained a core group of officers on the concepts learned in the OWDS class.  Then I and my team have trained all the Probation and Pretrial  officers and support staff about the Defendant/Offender Workforce Development Initiative and how their roles fit into this program.

We have scheduled Offender Employment Specialist (OES) training in every division in the Western District of Texas starting with San Antonio, Texas, last week, Austin, Texas in partnership with Travis County Community Corrections this week, Temple, Texas 2nd week in September and Del Rio, Texas third week in September.

El Paso, Texas has partnered with the District of NM and will hold the class in Las Cruces, NM in Oct. 2007.  The last OES training will be in Midland, Texas also in October2007.

We are very excited to have made some very productive partnerships as a result of this training.  There are so many agencies excited about participating and have complimented us in a job well done.

Thanks to Francina Carter who helped us with the training; as well as Ann Felts out of Bastrop FCI.  I have a feeling this is going to be a very important movement in the near
future.

Thanks as always to NIC's programs, research development, and  excellent
consultants.  I am not a stranger to your work.  I have utilized the
programs in the past and they have been excellent and beneficial to the
field."

Cynthia Mendiola
Supervising U. S. Probation Officer

Thanks Cynthia!