Steps to Success honors graduates
The program offers mental health, substance abuse treatment
Yolo County residents graduated from the Steps to Success program, which aims to help those facing criminal charges receive mental health and substance abuse treatment in order to reduce recidivism.
Steps to Success is a continuation of Neighborhood Court, a restorative justice approach to crime that involves placing offenders with a group of volunteer panelists who work together to find a suitable solution to an offense without the criminal justice system.
District Attorney Jeff Reisig, whose office started the Neighborhood Court program in 2013, said that he is grateful for all participants.
“We all live in this county together. And I hope that that process, the Neighborhood Court process, is something that you felt touched a part of you that you haven’t felt touched before,” Reisig said. “It’s with sincere gratitude that I thank the neighborhood court volunteers for their role in this process and it’s also with sincere gratitude that I thank you for being involved in this program and giving this a shot.”
The program works in collaboration with Neighborhood Court , Yolo County HHSA, Office of Yolo County District Attorneys/ Public Defenders, Yolo County Department of Probation, Empower Yolo, Legal Services of Northern CA and CommuniCare Health Centers
Clients must accept to go through intensive case management, substance abuse/ mental health treatment and assistance with finding housing and employment. Clients are then placed in front of a Neighborhood Court panel to discuss and take responsibility for their offenses, and eventually have their charges dropped.
“All of these individuals have worked really hard and taken advantage of the opportunities that the program has set up for them to participate in a nontraditional sense to be able to work within their communities to change the outcome of their charges,” said CommuniCare’s Adriana Galvez, who led the recent ceremony. “And so we are here to celebrate them and the journey that they have made.”
Seven individuals were celebrated during the ceremony, which took place over Zoom in an effort to quell the spread of COVID- 19.
Graduate Alyca Reynolds said that she ended up in the program because of an altercation with her abusive mother that ended with Reynolds getting arrested. It was her first time in the criminal justice system.
“A lot of people who end up in the criminal justice system come from backgrounds like ( mine) and are treated very unfairly because of it,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds stressed that, just because she came from an abusive situation, does not mean she is abusive herself, despite the stigma that follows her.
“Growing up like that and being completely and totally abused and neglected and, whatever the case is, by the person ( you’re) supposed to trust the most in life just completely makes me never want to hurt anybody,” she said. “I have a 13- year- old son and I face a lot of issues that a lot of other parents face, but I would never hurt my child the way that I’ve been hurt by my mom.”
Reynolds said that she currently has a year of college done and wants to go back to school to go into counseling and do something similar to what Steps to Success does. She recently moved out of state and is working on a book about her life.
Steps to Success first launched in Davis in 2018 and was funded by a 2017 grant of $ 5.9 million in an effort to reduce recidivism for offenders.
Neighborhood Court, one of the few restorative justice programs in the country, also started in Davis by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office. It was expanded to West Sacramento, Woodland and other parts of Yolo County in 2015. In the last five years, it has grown to include those with low- level felonies and those who may have had prior convictions, according to a statement from the DA’s office.