Hanging Up Her Badge: Colusa County Says Thank You to Probation Officer Kimberly Oliva
- Colusa County Recovery
- Feb 2
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
People walk into the Day Reporting Center in Colusa County carrying a lot more than paperwork.
They carry fear about what comes next. Relief that they’re not in jail. Hope they don’t fully trust yet. And a thousand quiet questions about whether this place will help them — or just process them.
What they don’t expect is how human it feels.
No tension. No raised voices. No one sitting in handcuffs. No sense that something bad is about to happen.
Instead, there are smiles — hellos from probation officers and other justice-involved people as you come through the door. It’s a space that feels calm and welcoming instead of cold and punishing.
For someone prepared for the worst, it lands like a quiet relief.
You find your way to your group room and take a seat beside people you’ve never met, all of you pretending not to notice how much this moment might matter. There’s a low hum of conversation. Someone laughs. Not awkward — normal.
And then Officer Kimberly Oliva walks in.
The room shifts — not because she demands it, but because she doesn’t have to.
There’s confidence in how she carries herself, warmth in the way she looks around the room. She seems to know everyone. And everyone clearly knows her.
A few quiet smiles appear. Someone straightens in their chair. You don’t need an explanation.
People trust her.
“Officer Kim greets the room.
“Looks like we have a new group member tonight,” she says. “Let’s do full introductions and tell our new member something you’ve learned here.”
One by one, people share their truths about what they’ve learned in group and how that’s helped them.
And for the first time since you walked in, the knot in your chest eases.
2012: WHY SHE CAME
Officer Kim arrived at Colusa County Probation in 2012 already knowing the work she wanted to do.
She had worked as a correctional counselor right out of college and earned her degree in social work with one clear intention: helping justice-involved people rebuild their lives.
Probation wasn’t a detour. It was a return.
A return to the kind of work that asks for patience, structure, and belief in second chances — even when they come slowly.
From the beginning, she brought a simple rule into the job and never let it go:
Firm. Fair. Consistent.
THE WORK: EVIDENCE-BASED, BY THE BOOK
Officer Kim was never casual about the programs she ran. She delivered them exactly as they were designed — not watered down, not improvised, not reshaped to be easier. The curriculum mattered to her, and so did the work everyone put into it.
Over the years, she facilitated multiple evidence-based programs at both the Day Reporting Center and inside the county jail. Not trend-based programs. Not feel-good workshops.
Programs built on research and practice. Programs meant to change thinking, challenge patterns, and build habits that last.
Her job was not to entertain a group.
Her job was to guide it.
And she took that responsibility seriously.
THE IMPACT: WHERE THE WORK BECAME REAL
The real evidence of Officer Kim’s work was never just in the programs. It was in the people who walked out of that room and built new lives.
Over the years, she watched participants go back to school. Start families. Repair relationships. Build careers they never imagined were possible.
But what stayed with her the most weren’t statistics or graduation counts. It was the moments when something finally clicked.
When asked what mattered most after all these years, she didn’t hesitate.
“The lightbulb moments,” she said. “When you see it in someone’s eyes — they get it. That doesn’t always mean there’s an immediate change. But that’s the base of the pyramid they’re going to build.”
She’s received notes, phone calls, and messages from current and former group members — words she keeps close. They remind her that the work mattered.
THE SHIFT: WHEN PROGRAMS BECAME THE BACKBONE
When Officer Kim first entered probation work, the field looked different.
Over time, she watched one change reshape everything: the move toward evidence-based programming.
“Programs became a thing,” she said, laughing lightly. “I piloted Breaking Barriers in five institutions a long time ago, before there was much research behind it. Now we know programs are the backbone of a modern probation model.”
For her, this wasn’t theory.
It was evolution.
It changed how officers worked with people. “Way less chasing around,” she said, “and way more changing thinking.”
JAIL AND THE DAY REPORTING CENTER: TWO WORLDS, ONE PURPOSE
Officer Kim has facilitated evidence-based programs both inside the county jail and at the Day Reporting Center — and while the curriculum may be similar, the environments could not be more different.
Inside the jail, participants had time — sometimes too much of it. There were layers of institutional rules, inmate politics, and the strain of confinement always in the background.
But there was also focus. “You have a captive audience,” she said with a small smile. “And you can use that to your advantage.”
At the Day Reporting Center, the dynamic changed.
Life was happening at the same time as the work.
“People are juggling work, family, and life,” she said. “So when they walk through that door, they’re making a choice to do something positive that day.” And in a room full of competing priorities, that effort stood out.
MRT: “THE KING”
Of all the tools Officer Kim used over the years, one stood above the rest. Without hesitation, she named it.
“Without a doubt, MRT is the king,” she said.
Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT) became one of the cornerstones of her work — a structured, evidence-based program designed to change the kind of thinking that keeps people stuck in the same patterns, choices, and outcomes.
Not surface change.
Not cosmetic change.
Real cognitive change.
The kind that asks a person to slow down, take responsibility, examine their decisions, and start rebuilding from the inside out.
For Officer Kim, MRT wasn’t just another program on a list. It was the one she watched transform lives again and again.
THE PRESSURES AND SUPPORT BEHIND THE WORK
The hardest part of the job, Officer Kim shared with us, wasn’t the work in the room. It was everything outside of it.
She’s candid about the challenges — the red tape, the bureaucracy, and the constant fight for resources that comes with government work. And then there’s the skepticism — the idea that programming is “psycho-babble” or soft where hard work is expected.
She learned quickly not to waste energy fighting every misunderstanding. “I ignore it most of the time,” she said plainly. What made the difference was leadership.
Within Probation, her direct supervisor, Supervising Probation Officer Kristen Simmons, ran interference behind the scenes — handling approvals, clearing obstacles, and protecting the time and space needed for groups to happen.
“She took care of the politics so I could take care of the people,” says Kim. “It was a partnership that allowed the program — and the people in it — to thrive.”
RETIREMENT & REFLECTION
After nearly fourteen years of showing up for other people’s turning points, Officer Kim is ready for one of her own.
She’s looking forward to what comes next — extensive travel, working part-time, and volunteering in the community.
What she’ll miss isn’t paperwork or policy.
It’s the group room. “The vibe,” she said. “When everything goes as planned and the lightbulbs are flashing above people’s heads.”
She’ll miss the drive home when she knows the work mattered. “When the connection is there, there is nothing like it,” she said. And she’ll miss walking out of the room and telling her supervisor, with a smile she couldn’t hide: “I was on FIRE tonight!”
What never changed, across all those years, was her purpose. “I entered the group room every day 100% focused on my goal,” she said, “which was to change the antisocial and criminal thinking of as many people as I could.”
She leaves behind a program that is bigger than any one person — and a standard that will outlast her.
Because the work matters.
And so does the person who does it.
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About the Author
Susan Wagenaar is the founder of Colusa County Recovery. She is a former justice-involved individual who successfully completed probation under the guidance of Probation Officer Kimberly Oliva. She now works in peer support and community advocacy for people impacted by addiction, justice involvement, and homelessness.
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