By Jessica Priest
Victoria Advocate
VICTORIA, Texas -- Victoria and Goliad counties’ Chief Juvenile Probation Officer Pama Hencerling received the Amador R. Rodriguez Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this week from the Juvenile Justice Association of Texas.
“I was quite shocked,” Hencerling said after returning from a conference at South Padre Island. “That’s pretty much the highest award you can get from the organization.”
Hencerling, a Sam Houston State University graduate, started her criminal justice career in 1985 as an intern with the 24th judicial community supervision corrections department and later as an adult probation officer.
In 1990, she became the first female chief juvenile probation officer in Victoria.
The Victoria Regional Juvenile Justice Center at 97 Foster Field Drive opened in 1992 and originally had the capacity for 16 juveniles.
She helped design it so it could begin housing up to 72 juveniles in 1995.
It’s also the only long-term residential facility in Texas equipped to handle pregnant juveniles, according to the nomination letter.
Hencerling was also an adjunct instructor at Victoria College from 1986-1999 as well as Policy Academy Instructor at the Victoria College Police Academy from 1986-2006. She’s also involved in both criminal justice organizations and local non profits, such as the Golden Crescent Court Appointed Special Advocate.
Amador R. Rodriguez, who the award was named for, worked in the Cameron County juvenile department from 1971 until his death in 2002. During his time there, he created a juvenile boot camp and an alternative education program, said Joe Paniagua, a member of the Juvenile Justice Association of Texas’ awards and resolutions committee.
Hencerling and two others were considered for this year’s award.
This isn’t the first time Hencerling or her staff have been recognized.
For two years, the Texas Youth Commission lauded their pregnant education and parenting program and in 2008, Hencerling received the Texas Probation Association’s Amador Rodriguez Award for Outstanding Juvenile Probation Administrator, just to name a few, according to the nomination letter.
“I’m planning on continuing on and maybe sometime in the future, if or when I do retire from the county, I want to do some training on the side for other probation departments,” Hencerling said.