3rd Day at the Detention Center (Feb 20, 2024)

This week’s visit was great, and it made me very happy to see some kids return and come again. When we first got to the site I noticed that the staff was completely different from those who have been there the past two weeks. The difference between the energy the kids have with certain staff versus the staff there this week is like night and day. The kids seemed more reserved and less relaxed. When we got into the gym area with our group, we started by talking about the different books and movies that we liked. I’ve noticed over the past couple of weeks that many of the boys enjoy gangster movies such as Menace to Society because it teaches people the consequences of being involved in that lifestyle. I also noticed that everyone mostly likes superhero and science fiction movies/books because they are interesting to them.

When we divided into pairs, I worked with the same girl that I worked with last week. She was happy to see me and she told me that she had thought a little about stories over the past week and that she had told a couple of her friends who are at the juvenile center as well. She was a lot more talkative this week than she was last week, which made it easier for me as well. A boy joined our group as well, and he has been there every time we have visited the center. The first week we went, he sat in the back with staff and didn’t participate much. Over the past couple of weeks, I haven’t worked with him but I noticed that he was interacting more. Yesterday I finally got to work with him and he was a lot more talkative than I expected. He even shared a couple personal details. When I gave them the prompt of a time that they helped someone who was sick, he shared about his mother being sick. He told me that growing up they didn’t have a lot of food at home, and that he would steal canned chicken noodle soup for his mother and his siblings. We eventually got back to the topic of superheroes and they told me which were their favorites.