Popular youth offender program returns

Creating Awareness Together, most commonly known as Kid CAT, is reemerging at San Quentin after a long COVID-19-driven hiatus. 

Prior to the initial, long COVID-19 shutdown, Kid CAT lost its outside volunteer Bev Shelby and has since lost many of its facilitators due to releases. Gone is program Chair Si Dang and valued members like Thanh Tran and Tommy Ross, but the program has reloaded with a fresh group of committed facilitators. 

Kid CAT Chair Kenneth Vernon spoke of the continuation of one of San Quentin’s leading programs. “We are happy to return and expect to be back up running in full this year. The last three years have been difficult, but it has been for everyone,” he said. 

Group Secretary Chase Benoit believes that residents are ready to come back and start learning. He said he hopes Kid CAT’s First Step curriculum will return this year. First Step was the program’s original class and specifically deals with the processing of childhood trauma. 

“We anticipate being up and running at pre-COVID level by the end of the first quarter of this year,” said Benoit. 

Kid CAT’s facilitators describe the program as a group of men who committed their crimes in their teens and were sentenced as adults to life terms. They have adopted a mission to inspire humanity through education, mentorship and restorative practices. 

Kid CAT strives to emphasize strength in community and family though the closed square. The traditional floor plan, with tables in a square with all the chairs facing the center, is present again each Thursday in education room A-2. 

The program also offers Kid CAT Speaks. Kid CAT Speaks allows all offenders, educators and policymakers the opportunity to have a voice regarding juvenile justice issues and rehabilitation. 

Programs under the Kid CAT umbrella include: 

Juvenile Lifer Support Group 

The Beat Within (a voluntary walk-in program that develops writers) 

Annual Hygiene Pick-up Drive 

Project Avery March 

Kid CAT Annual Banquet which will resume this year. 

“I participate in the Lifer Support Group on Sundays and it is one of the best classes that have allowed me the space to heal from my criminality as a juvenile. I recommend it to the individuals who have had to face adult court as a minor and now see it has created systemic trauma in a lot of men’s lives,” said incarcerated resident Chris Rigsby. 

Vernon, Benoit and all of the program’s inside and outside facilitators advise San Quentin residents interested in joining the group to contact the prison’s Community Resource Manager by submitting an add slip. The slips are available in the education lobby. Incarcerated residents in other CDCR facilities can obtain Kid CAT’S curriculum by asking their institution’s Community Resource Manager to contact their counterpart at San Quentin.