We have an amazing team of volunteers both in Oklahoma and Colorado.  We went from over 70 inmates in OK down to 34 last Friday.  Four STAR Volunteers – Susan, Melva, Konrad, and Patty – were in the Oklahoma Women’s Prison (Mabel Bassett) last Friday and led four amazing circles of Acknowledgement Throne Exercises.  The numbers have dropped, with the ones who couldn’t really connect to this work gone, and with the others in smaller groups of 8-10 mothers, it was in the zone.

In all our programs we teach 8 modules:

1. Levels-of-Listening & Powerful Questions
2. Intuition and Acknowledgement
3. Personal Values
4. Saboteurs or Inner Critic
5. Perspectives, Balance Wheel
6. Action and Accountability
7. Visioning
8. Who’s Driving Your Bus of Life, Take Your Power Back

In the Acknowledgement Throne portion of the second module, we talk about how acknowledgement (talking about who they are, who they want to be, as they are accomplishing something positive, vs. compliments, which talks about what they accomplished, or just general positive comments or what they did) have each person sit in a chair in the front of the room, and each person, some more than once, acknowledges them.  The person on the Acknowledgement Throne can only take it in, perhaps saying thank you.  The other participants use their intuition and say from their heart, “You are _______”, examples, you are courageous, you are tenacious, you are loyal, you are powerful, you are humble…

We’re introducing a new all day Saturday Train-the-Trainer workshop scheduled for Nov. 23rd, from 2:00 to 8:00 pm, this will accommodate Mabel Bassett’s visiting hours of 9:00 to 2:00 pm.  We have 11 ladies who have been through our program and in various different Train-the-Trainer workshops over the past three years; they will be co-leading our new program on the main yard (general population).  We’re excited about this program as it’s in partnership with the Friends for Folks dog program, which is a new program for Mabel Bassett but it has been active at the men’s prison in Lexington, OK for the last 28 years. It’s time the women got exposed to this amazing program and we are proud to be their partners!

I’ll be sharing more about the successes of the Friends for Folks program over the coming weeks – stay tuned!

Our Denver Women’s Prison program has been on a roller coaster from 15 ladies to only 2, two weeks ago (that was two female inmates and me). With such a small group, I had the opportunity to hear the tragic story of one of them, Juanita, through teenage drugs, the death of one of her twins, the death of another child, and about the other twin and a 2-year old daughter.  I took her through the Perspectives Wheel on the topic of “living thru November” – the month her twin died, with the current perspective that she couldn’t control herself in this month, it just takes over and she acts out. She moved from hopeless and uncontrollable to the perspective of hope and new life, the perspective thru the eyes of her 2-year old daughter.

This week it was very noticeable how engaged and how effective at coaching in triads Juanita was, she was smiling, happy, and she is becoming a real competent coach in the triads.  She will celebrate Thanksgiving this month for the first time in 10 years.

We will run this program every Tuesday evening thru December 17th.

 

Here is one of the questions I get asked all of the time. Why do I choose to work primarily within prisons and directly with incarcerated women, instead of focusing on influencing change to the prison system as a whole?

Great question.

While I absolutely hope to bring about change from the top down, this type of change takes time. It takes changing the status quo, which can be a labor intensive and slow process. And while this type of change is ultimately a goal of mine, what happens to the women in the system right now? How does change that could take years impact their lives and the lives of their families immediately?

So while I would love to see change in how prisons are run and have impact on the sentences of those convicted of non-violent crimes, I feel the profound need to start making a change right now.

There are many ways to get involved in increasing the awareness around the issue of the incarceration of women in the various prison systems across the US. With the rates of incarceration rising across the country, and certainly in more so in some states, it really is time to take notice of this forgotten population that will be re-entering society at some point.

What investment are we making to ensure that this re-entry is smooth for the community, the individual, and their family? And while many feel that this issue is too large to effectively address, and believe me, at times it feels like it is… One of the best first steps is to increase awareness around the issue as a whole.

Over the coming weeks I’ll speak directly to some of the statistics that begin to paint the picture of the issue at hand. But before I get into the numbers, I wanted to highlight a colleague of mine who is putting a face to the women (and their families) who either are, or have been incarcerated in Oklahoma.

I’d like to introduce you to Yousef Khanfar, who has recently released “Invisible Eve”, available here.

What I find inspiring about Yousef’s work is that he (in his words) is looking to build “Bridges of Understanding”. His book is a collection of photographs that capture real moments in the lives of these women, and in some cases, moments with their children.

In a recent article Khanfar is quoted as saying “This is a very traumatic experience for these children that leaves a permanent scar in their souls,” he said. “We often forget that many of these women are mothers, and when we imprison mothers, we imprison families. It’s the children who are paying the ultimate price. So, this project is a call to action, a celebration of women, and also a reminder that the mother is the center of the family.” (source: http://newsok.com/photographer-hopes-to-reduce-high-rate-of-womens-incarcerations-in-oklahoma/article/3855083/?page=1 )

I can’t help but be moved by his photographs, and I encourage you to take a look at his work and see the woman (and the family) behind the image.

How can you get involved right now?

If you’d like to volunteer your time, we have multiple opportunities for you to become involved – I’d love to chat with you about this more! Not all of our volunteers work in the prisons some provide some much needed behind the scenes support.

But you can get involved right now by taking this issue out of the shadows and into your life. Learn more about the state of our prisons by doing some research online, and share what you’ve learned with others.

We can make a difference, together.

Four of us went into the Denver Women’s Prison again last evening and posts about that experience will be forthcoming.

Here is a note to me from a volunteer last Tuesday night:
Hi Reuel
As promised – I’m putting together some thoughts on my experience on the first night of the training for the women at Denver Women’s Correctional. Please feel free to forward my notes to others who are interested.

I was nervous (!) to meet the ladies in the class. It took a bit to find the room and rearrange the furniture so we didn’t really start till about 6:15 – 6:30. It was a little creepy not being able to open a door unless an officer opened it for us – but the officer was very nice and my uneasiness was quickly dispelled once we were in the training room (and I knew where the panic button was!).

Not everyone was there yet, so to fill the time, we talked a bit with the participants about what “coaching” is and what it means to learn “coaching skills.” And, of course, what is Reuel going to do to fill the time waiting for the stragglers – coach someone!

Rose, our brave “volun – told,” really opened up to your coaching and I think that, by itself, set the general tone. It’s as though Rose gave everyone permission to be authentic and vulnerable because that’s exactly what she modeled.

Once we got going with the actual class and did the opening mingle – the energy really kicked in. The ladies were open and real. They engaged fully in the conversation and were spellbound when you picked up and continued the coaching with Rose as the demo. This time as they watched the coaching interaction, now that they were aware of powerful questions and listening skills, they were so much more attentive to what was going on. They were really learning to observe. I think a deeper level of learning happened by having essentially 2 demos, one before the conversation, and one after the mingle where they had a chance to experience PQs.

Triads were great – the one I was in had some terrific coaching. I loved what you said about coaching from your heart instead of your head. So much easier to grip than “get out of your head!” Even though we only had time for one round (4 min each), in the debrief at the end they reported realizations that these skills will take conscious effort and PRACTICE. Indeed.

What I did NOT see was “attitude” which is what I was concerned about. The level of self-awareness was much higher than I expected; probably a result of the self development efforts made by the offenders, and the availability of programs provided by the facility. A few mentioned their therapists; they clearly are making effort and our training can do nothing but support that.

There was only one participant who was resistant, and after triads I noticed that she had shut down. In the closing circle, she was able to express her feelings about being made “wrong” in her perception. For us it was a great teachable moment as the triad coaches shared their learning to the group (differentiating between questions that gather information and questions that open the space). Her body language at the end was different from the beginning of the class, more open, so I’m anticipating that eventually she’ll be our star student. We need to do more TA-DA’s ourselves to model willingness to fail and to let go of it.

I’m excited to continue and want the others to have a chance to co-lead. This is a terrific bunch of ladies, very teachable, and I know we are making a difference.
Thanks for letting me play!
Debra