Livin' On a Prayer

Whoah, we're halfway there! End of week two!

Today after session Ellie showed me this article. It was so powerful to hear the message, especially after some of the comments in class today. The comment regarding “poverty of the spirit” is from the following quote by Mother Teresa:

“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality.”

In class today, we asked one participant that arrived early for some feedback about the curriculum so far. He said that he wanted us to talk about overcoming the despair and hopelessness that a lot of the men in jail feel. That really stuck with us. We know the population we work with is largely unwanted. We know that there are so many people who would rather just forget about the men we work with and lock them away. We know how many people don’t care about how they’re treated or if they receive the services they need. It was a moment of clarity and sadness to hear that individuals that are incarcerated know that too. Can you imagine how that must feel—to know that the majority of the world doesn’t believe in you and will do anything it takes to keep you isolated from the rest of the world?

In part because of this experience, we are adding in an insightful activity that we participated in during our orientation to the Brown School. The activity consists of hanging up chart paper on the walls, writing on each one a commonly stereotyped individual, and asking participants to write down what stereotypes they would associate with that person. Some of the examples we will use include: “A black man driving a Mercedes benz,” “A Hispanic male,” and “A blonde woman wearing a skirt.”

Both Ellie and I loved this exercise during orientation, and we feel like it will be helpful in facilitating a conversation about stereotypes these men will face when applying for jobs and how to overcome these stereotypes or turn them into positives. Huge thanks to our friend at school who mentioned that she was doing this exercise with a group at her internship! It just goes to show you how networking (even with friends and colleagues) can be beneficial!

Today we were in the chapel again (wamp wamp) BUT it was set up with tables and chairs when we got there. AND the guard asked us for our list as soon as he saw us approaching the chapel, so we were able to get everyone called out and to the chapel on time. Lesson learned: copy the superintendent on emails about requests for preparing the classroom (or chapel), and keep the participant list on you at all times.

In addition to starting on time, this was the first day that we got through everything within our allotted time frame. The pacing of today’s class was great and seemed to keep the group engaged. We had a few clever moments today, such as using post it notes to denote checkboxes on one of our large poster prints instead of a marker so that we can reuse the poster (side note: we need to reuse them because it cost more than $200 to print 10 posters). I also randomly decided to ask the group members to apply our lesson about “I messages” over the next few days. Ellie and I decided after class that we would continue asking group members to apply what we learn in class to their daily lives at the jail and then debrief about it at the beginning of the next session.

Another activity we asked the group about adding to the beginning of each class is a “high/low,” where we would ask each member to share a high and low point about their weeks. They didn’t seem too gung-ho about the idea, and one group member said we should focus on the positive with only a “high,” and he added that we could ask what one thing they learned last session was. We thought that was such an insightful comment to connect to previous classes and review, and we will be doing that for the rest of our sessions.

Usually we will have participants break into pairs or small groups to complete activities, or we do them together as a class. Today, though, we decided to split into two smaller groups with Ellie and I joining each one. This was really successful for encouraging the less talkative group members to speak up. It seems like it was less intimidating to just have one of the facilitators and a more intimate group.

Another activity that promoted a lot of unexpected discussion was a chart entitled “Reasons for Being Late or Absent” that listed possible reasons for being late to work and asked the group to decide whether it was a good or bad reason, or okay if not to often. There was disagreement on almost every reason, but the group members were able to come to a consensus usually on their own. It was great to see them thinking critically and putting their all into a group activity.

There was a little hiccup in today’s session when one of the participants mentioned that there were “men with fancy new iPhones walking around taking pictures” of the facility, and “they’re trying to make it look good in here today.” One of the men took a picture of our group through the window of the chapel, which made us all feel uncomfortable. The guys apparently all know about the scrutiny that MSI is under and knew about the article we linked in our previous post. Again, it was interesting to hear that they all know about this scrutiny (how do they know??—they don’t have internet access), and we wondered for a moment if perhaps that was why everything ran so smoothly today in terms of room setup and call out. We will keep you posted on this as we find out more!

Until next time,

E&K

Happy Social Worker month!!! #CupcakesAndButtons

Working out the kinks

Kelly and I are getting the hang of this whole teaching in prison thing.  While Kelly had experience working with inmates previously, my closest experience was teaching art classes to a gaggle of unruly grade school students armed with mass amounts of glitter and paint. Due to my lack of experience, I came to this position of facilitating a group of 17-25 year-old incarcerated fathers with a great deal of hesitation and trepidation. At week two, I can honestly say I am glad to have art camp behind me.  Facilitating TEP at MSI isn’t much different than any other job I’ve had.  The only difference is getting patted down upon entering and having a few doors that have to be unlocked along the way by guards to your office. 

Our second week has gotten off to a smooth start.  We arrived 30 minutes early today with posters rolled up, flip chart, and tote bag in hand filled with the necessities of pens, extra folders, class hand-outs, paper, dry erase markers, and tape.  The funny thing about working in a prison is that there is a great deal of inconsistency in what I imagined as such a rigid and strict environment.  Upon going in to TEP today we were told that we needed a clear bag for all of our belongings so that guards could see what was inside.  Obviously we are happy to comply, but it is frustrating getting all of the information in little bits and pieces versus as a coherent message.

Kelly and I were thrilled to be able to walk to our classroom, hang our print-outs and write today’s discussion questions on the white board all before the class arrived. We were set to go at 9:15 on the dot.  Kelly and I were ready for attentive bright eyed students and maybe even an apple on our desk to start the session. (Note: Kelly likes Honey crisp and I, Fuji)  We were brought back down to reality when the classroom was empty until 9:35 when the first 3 individuals trickled in yellow jump suit and all. Right, we are in a prison. By 9:45 we were up to 7.  I didn’t think absent faces would bother me, but both Kelly and I felt a nagging feeling when two participants did not show up when they had no excuse. Kelly and I are hoping to solve this problem by having our own list of participants so that upon our arrival we can give it to a guard and tell them to go to town.  Previously, it was expected that the guards would have our participants in the classroom on their own, but it is clear that this is also our responsibility.


Week 2 continues to be a learning process.  Kelly and I are continually updating our curriculum to meet the needs of the inmates and we welcome their feedback.  Last week we provided them with a resource packet and we were slightly taken aback today to hear how difficult it is for them to secure resources pamphlets within the facility.  This was especially poignant after reading this article: Protesters, former inmates want the St. Louis workhouse to close in the Saint Louis Post Dispatch about our current practicum placement.


To end on a positive note: While doing a lesson about problem solving we ad-libbed and did a group example on the board because we thought some clarification was needed.  It was a success! While last week we noted that our personal examples help, adding a group example after our example seems to be the most effective.  This is great to know so that when we meet over the weekend to practice the upcoming session we can find space to add such points in the next session. 


Chapel countdown = 6 more sessions

E & K

The Beginning

The Planning Phase and Day One

Well hey there everybody! Kelly here. I have been given the task of writing the first blog post, so hopefully I'll kick it off right! 

Let's start from the beginning. Ellie and I met in Fall 2014 during our first semester of graduate school (see our About Us page for all of the details on us and our studies!). We are both research assistants for Dr. Carrie Pettus-Davis, a professor at the Brown School whose work focuses on adult incarcerated populations and reentry. Last semester we helped Carrie with an in-development decarceration initiative and contacted criminal justice stakeholders for their input. 

We also both interviewed and received and offer for an internship at the City Justice Center (CJC) Division of Corrections (DOC) in downtown St. Louis. When we started our internship, we had a general idea of what we would be doing. Ellie knew she would be working through a grant with the Fathers Support Center (check out our Resources and Collaborators page for links and descriptions) and I knew I would be working with certified juveniles (juveniles who are being tried as adults due to the nature of their crimes). 

We soon found out that the Fathers Support Center wanted to implement job readiness programming at the Medium Security Institution (MSI), one of two jails in St. Louis city, and this project was going to be Ellie's focus. Initially, Ellie came on to this project from a research stance, but it quickly changed to a facilitator role. Ellie asked me to help out because she had never facilitated and felt uncomfortable taking on the project by herself. At first I was just helping her develop the curriculum, but once I was in it, I wanted to take on more, so now we are facilitating together and attending weekly meetings with Carrie to discuss progress and debrief. 

For the past couple of months, we have been compiling materials, meeting with community stakeholders, and developing the curriculum. It's been a new experience for both of us to adapt a program and make it our own, and it's been complicated by communication issues. Because we work at CJC but the program will be at MSI, it's been incredibly frustrating to try and coordinate everything between two facilities. 

These frustrations have been ongoing from the beginning—from touring MSI to forming our mock group to figuring out who is involved with the project and whom to contact—and continued to our first day. We got there half an hour early for our first session and were unable to enter the facility because of a "situation in medical," were unable to make copies of our materials after being told previously that we would have access to a copy machine, and had two people unable to participate in our session due to disability and language barrier. 

Despite this rough start, we ended up having an awesome group. They were very respectful and displayed common sense and intelligence. We were especially impressed with their comments when we made "ground rules." Because neither Ellie nor I had ever experienced ground rules in a group setting before beginning graduate school, we assumed the group would have difficulty as well. But when we broached the topic, they knew exactly what ground rules were and came up with a comprehensive list on their own. We didn't even have to pull any rules from the examples we had written down in our notes because they said them all.

Day One's Agenda

What a great list!!

At the beginning of the session, the group members' body language didn't necessarily indicate that they wanted to learn, and several of them commented that they didn't want to be there, but their actions after class started showed that they were motivated. They followed their ground rules to a T. They didn't talk over each other, and they listened to their classmates. We got lots of great feedback about our facilitation style and our personalities, and we felt like they were comfortable with us because we are peers and still in school. I think the fact that we explained that we are volunteers and students gave them a level of respect for us.

We didn't have time to get through everything we had planned and ended up sending them home with more things than we wanted to, but now we have an idea of how to better manage our time. We also quickly discovered that although we thought we had planned ahead enough, we now know that we will have to have everything ready beforehand when working in this type of facility. It's unpredictable, and you never know when there will be a "situation" or a lockdown, or when, you know, access to a simple copy machine will be barred.

Bilingual Behind Bars

I made a separate heading for this story, even though it happened on day one, because it was just so cool. So as I mentioned before, there was a group member who struggled to participate because of a language barrier. When we asked him to share, he said, "I speak very little English." Ellie, without skipping a beat, began speaking to him and translating all of the instructions in Spanish. The looks on the group members' faces were absolutely priceless, and it's all they wanted to talk about after session ended. Ellie got major street cred for busting out her bilingual skills. 

Of course, we were not prepared to have to translate and we don't know if he'll be able to participate because we only have an hour for class, but it was just such a great moment to see Ellie step up and take an unexpected complication in stride.

Day Two 

Day Two's Agenda

I made copies Thursday morning so that Ellie and I were fully prepared to just walk in and start class on Friday. Except that none of the participants were there, which was a bit of an issue. Apparently the call out process is more complicated than we thought, and we started class late again because we had to wait for the guards to call each participant out of his bunk.

Because of scheduling conflicts at MSI, our Friday classes for the TEP mock group are held in the chapel as opposed to the classroom. It's a huge space, but it's also hotter than Australia in December and echoey and noisy so that we couldn't understand anyone when they were speaking. This also made it more distracting to the participants and made it difficult for them to hear their peers share. Ellie and I had to share a tiny podium and hang charts on a wall that was 15 feet behind us. Overall, the space was not conducive to learning at all, and we are going to do our best to schedule programming only in the classroom for future groups.

Participation was high again today though, despite location complications. The group members were raising their hands and shouting out answers as soon as we asked them to share. Because of this, we're going to focus more on interactive activities rather than lectures. We didn't have a lot of lecture to begin with, but it's clear that the group members prefer working in pairs or small groups, completing worksheets, and sharing with each other and with us. 

Ellie and I are also trying to have fun with the class and participate ourselves. We complete most of the activities and worksheets as well, and share our own answers as part of the process. For example, we asked the group to complete a networking worksheet today about their "inner circles," or people they know that could help them get jobs in the future. Ellie and I completed this worksheet as well, noting Carrie, Kimberly (our intern supervisor), and even a caseworker at MSI as people in our "circle." They also asked us about our experiences in conducting informational interviews as part of networking, and we were able to tell them first-hand how helpful they are. It seems like the group enjoys having real-world examples from people close to their age who are also experiencing uncertainty about jobs and our future. 

Perhaps Ellie and I's greatest strength in all of this is our age. Think about it: when a parent or other adult tells you about how they got their first job, it's easy to tune out and think that their experiences must be different because times have changed. But when you're talking to someone who is in your cohort, you can share experiences from things that happened within the past few weeks or months, not 25 years ago. Of course, that doesn't mean that those things that happened 25 years ago aren't still relevant today, but it's all about perception, especially when working with a vulnerable population like inmates. 

The way that Ellie and I treat the group members may also contribute to their willingness to participate. The manner in which we speak to them is vastly different than that of the guards. We treat them with the same respect we expect them to give us and their fellow group members, we don't talk down to them, and we make it clear that we will answer any questions or concerns they might have without chastising them. Of course, the guards have a very different job than we do, but it really makes me think about how your demeanor can make all the difference in encouraging people to speak out and behave well.

Just some food for thought to end this week. Until next time.

E & K