Empowerment Approaches with Offenders: Techniques that Heal

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Welcome
Empowerment Approaches with Offenders Techniques
that Heal
How does one work in
the system without becoming the system? Two
social workers who work at York Correctional
Institution, Connecticuts only female prison,
will discuss empowerment theory and practice as
it is applied to treatment of female offenders.
Techniques and programs that empower the
incarcerated women, as well as the social worker,
in an effort to achieve social justice will be
shared and discussed.
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Elizabeth Allen, LCSW

• Elizabeth Allen has worked at York Correctional
  Institution for eighteen years as a clinical
  social worker.
• Her innovative peer mentoring program employs the
  concept of reciprocal rehabilitation and has
  been presented at NOFSW, NASW, and the National
  Commission of Correctional Managed Health Care
  conferences. She has additionally presented on
  topics of empowerment practice with female
  offenders and peer mentoring programs as
  effective interventions for offenders.
• In addition to providing individual and group
  treatment to female offenders, she works
  collaboratively with custody and
  multidisciplinary staff in order to provide
  gender-responsive and trauma-informed services
  for female offenders during their incarceration.
• Ms. Allen is presently working towards her Ph.D.
  in social work at UCONN. Her dissertation topic
  will be female offenders, empowerment theory and
  successful reintegration.
• She is currently an adjunct faculty at UCONN
  School of Social Work and teaching Research
  Methods to MSW students.

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Jessie Loss, LCSW

• Jessie Loss, LCSW has been working with female
  offenders at York Correctional Institution for 5
  years providing inpatient and outpatient care for
  women with intensive mental health needs.
• She currently works in the Safe Passage Day
  Treatment program with an interdisciplinary team
  providing group and individual treatment.
• Jessie works in collaboration with custody staff
  in order to provide trauma and gender-informed
  treatment to offenders during their
  incarceration.
• She is bilingual and provides culturally
  competent translation and supportive therapy with
  Spanish speaking female offenders.
• She presented at NOFSW, 2011 in New Orleans on
  the topic of integrative day treatment with
  offenders. She has also presented on empowerment
  practice with female offenders at NASW
  conferences.
• Jessie recently opened a private practice
  providing collaborative community treatment with
  area hospitals and providers.

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Problem Statement

• Female Offenders
• The number of incarcerated women in prisons more
  than doubled between 1990 and 1999, outpacing the
  rise in the number of incarcerated men (Beck,
  2000).
• Are members of several oppressed and disempowered
  groups
• Have high rates of substance abuse, trauma
  experiences, and lack of educational and
  vocational services.
• Pathways to Crime different from males
• Correctional environments are oppressive by
  nature and therefore providing services that are
  empowering in nature, can be challenging.

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Unintended Consequences of Mass Incarceration

• Racial
• Poverty
• Education and Employment
• Children and Families
• Disadvantaged Communities

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Racial

• Race and class divisions in the risks of
  imprisonment 6 to 8 times higher for young
  black men compared to young whites. For black
  men in their mid-thirties at the end of the
  1990s, prison records were nearly twice as common
  as bachelors degrees (Pettit Western, 2004).
• Black males have a 29 lifetime chance of serving
  at least a year in prison (6X higher than for
  White males).
• Between the 1980s and 1990s 400 increase in
  the chances that a drug arrest would result in a
  prison sentence.
• The increase in the disproportionate rates of
  incarcerated blacks is linked to key economical,
  political and cultural factors related to ghetto
  poverty (Bobo Thompson, 2008).
• Black men are being sentenced to prisons at a
  faster rate than they are enrolling in college.
  In 2002, approximately 791,000 went to prison as
  opposed to 603, 000 were in higher education.
• State spending on criminal justice increased 6X
  the rate of state spending on higher education.

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Poverty

• The United States has the highest poverty rate
  for female-headed households and the largest
  gender gap related to poverty.
• In 2001, over one-half (52) of the 32.9 million
  people (including children) living in poverty
  were women.
• 49 of families living below the poverty level
  were headed by single women. Poor women without
  state assistance are 3.3 times more likely to
  reoffend than recipients (Holtfreter, et al.,
  2004).
• Women with fewer educational achievements, lower
  self-efficacy, and problems related to employment
  and financial assistance are significantly more
  likely to be incarcerated (Salisbury Van
  Voorhis, 2009).

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Education and Employment

• Womens poverty attributed to limited
  educational vocational skills, drug/alcohol
  dependence, child care responsibilities, and
  illegal opportunities offering more lucrative
  returns
• Only 40 of women in state prison report
  full-time employment prior to their arrest, and
  2/3 report their highest hourly wage to be no
  higher than 6.50 (BJS, 1999).
• With every year of increase in education, the
  chance the womens earnings would be from illegal
  means decreased by 18.
• School and employment significantly impact the
  likelihood of rearrest.
• As education increased, recidivism rates
  decreased.
• Women working in a regular job are 83 less
  likely less likely to be arrested than women who
  are unemployed.
• Women attending school are 90 less likely to be
  arrested than women not in school (Uggen
  Kruttschnitt, 1998).

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Children Family

• Generations are being lost to the prison system
  and as a result, children, families and
  communities become more vulnerable, defenseless,
  and impoverished.
• Broken mother-child bonds can potentially lead to
  female offenders experiencing a life of
  meaningless misery and doom their children to
  becoming victims of the criminal justice system
  as they repeat the cycle of poverty, crime and
  drugs (Geiger Fischer, 2003).

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Disadvantaged communities

• The consequences of imprisonment on minority
  communities and our democracy are profound.
• Concentrated poverty increases the likelihood of
  social isolation (from mainstream institutions),
  joblessness, dropping out of school, lower
  educational achievement, involvement in crime,
  unsuccessful behavioral development family
  management
• Concentrated poverty adversely affects ones
  chances in life beginning in early childhood and
  adolescence.
• As individuals are recycled between prison and
  community increases the social disorganization
  of poor, disadvantaged communities and results in
  higher crime rates in those communities
• Community collaboration and active engagement is
  the most effective crime fighting tools it is
  more difficult to turn to the communities and ask
  for assistance in neighborhood-based approaches
  if we increase alienation b/w community and
  justice agencies

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Empowerment Theory Practice

• Assumes that society consists of separate groups
  possessing different levels of power and control
  over resources.
• The goal is social justice
• Social problems stem not from individual
  deficits, but from the failure of the society to
  meet the needs of all its members
• In social work, it merged from efforts to develop
  more effective and responsive services for women
  and people of color
• A process of increasing personal, interpersonal,
  or political power so that individuals can take
  action to improve their life situations
• Integrates both individual change and social
  change and believes that many of the negative
  symptoms that emerge in powerless clients stem
  from their strategies to cope with a hostile
  world.

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Desistance Theory

• Recognizes the broader social contexts and
  conditions that are required to support change.
• Impact of disadvantaged communities are not just
  going to disappear because the offender wants to
  desist both are needed
• Pathway to desistance for females self-efficacy
  and empowerment are key elements

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Paradigms

• Deficit paradigm individual focused, they need
  to be fixed and are incapable of doing it by
  themselves and therefore need to be fixed by
  eternal forces.
• Empowerment Paradigm Combination of individual
  change and structural support. Do not fix the
  offender but provide infrastructure to promote
  healthier communities to support the offenders.

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Commonly cited values of Social Work Profession
nondiscrimination
Respect of persons
Seeking to meet individuals common human needs
Individual worth dignity
Providing individuals with opportunity to realize
their potential
Client empowerment
Client self-determination
Valuing individuals capacity for change
Commitment to social change and social justice
Seeking to provide individuals with adequate
resources and services to meet basic needs
Equal opportunity
Respect of diversity
Confidentiality
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Empowerment
Elizabeth Allen, LCSW
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Sisters Standing Strong

• Offender Mentoring Program
• York Correctional Institution
• Niantic, Connecticut

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Sisters Standing Strong Program Goals

• To provide an opportunity for the female
  offenders to stand as role models for others.
• To provide an opportunity for placement into a
  program that promotes pride, growth and
  empowerment for the helpers.
•  To aid in the adjustment of women who are newly
  admitted.
• To provide an outlet where the female offenders
  can receive peer-support and insight into common
  adjustment issues.
• To reduce the number of crisis calls and MH
  referrals for adjustment issues.

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Reflections on Peer Support
To be able to share feelings with others, to
open up and not have to feel ashamed or
embarrassed, will help the shy girls to come out
of their shells and find similarities with other
inmates.
We are not alone in our feelings. Only another
woman who is in the same situation as you can
truly understand.
This program will definitely save women from
losing all hope, and help us to begin to believe
a little more in ourselves and having the
strength to do our time.
The ladies took the time to listen to my
complaining and cry of help. Somebody actually
cared about the way I am feeling.
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Sisters Standing Strong Video Clip
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Success and Community Growth

• Dear Liz, Mary, Jill and all my Sisters,
• Its been a little while since I last made
  contact. I wanted to write to tell all of you
  that I have not forgotten about you. Indeed, you
  are in my heart and on my mind every day. I used
  to say that once I was released and I got a car I
  would drive down there and just sit across the
  street and remember. And so I did just that this
  past weekend. For a small window of time the sun
  shined down on us and under blue skies I walked
  around the ball field just outside that barbed
  wire fence and I reconnected with each of you.
• Everything has been going so incredibly great
  for me and that is when I need to be reminded of
  all I have come through most. I used to be a
  self-sabotager. I did not believe that I
  deserved to have a good and healthy life, and so
  when things were going good in my life, I would
  do things to sabotage them. Well not today. I
  work real hard to have all that I have and I
  refuse to let anything or anyone including
  myself, destroy them or take them away from me.
  YOU all of you, taught me that.

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• I also learned how important it is to give back.
  Sisters Standing Strong showed me that there is
  so much more to be gained in giving, or rather
  sharing, with others. You women have changed my
  life and I thank you for sharing your lives with
  me.
• There are some really great things happening out
  here that will positively impact those of you in
  there. I know right now you are experiencing
  changes that are probably making you crazy, but
  rest assured, they are temporary all of that
  is-and good things are brewing. We are in a
  great position politically for some serious
  changes to happen, and time is not holding anyone
  back from making those changes happen. HOPE,
  BELIEVE and so it shall be.
• Keep your heads up, and lean on one another,
  even if you dont or cant see the value in what
  you have today there- I promise you, you will see
  it when you leave.
• Blessings to all,
• Deborah R

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Empowerment
Jessica Loss, LCSW
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Intensive Day Treatment in Prison
Empowerment based mental health treatment
programming
Jessica Loss, LCSW
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Safe Passage Day Treatment Program

• Interdisciplinary Collaborative treatment
  approach
• Ongoing monitoring, assessment, support,
  treatment, collaboration with adjunct services,
  and discharge planning.
• Began in 2008 with 16 participants, currently
  have 32 participants
• Individualized treatment plans schedules- Track
  1 and Track 2

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Holistic Approach

• Individualized Intake process Treatment plan-
  bio-psycho-social, client based
• Staff ideology
• Interdisciplinary
• Weekly treatment team
• Collateral communication
• Strengths based, reality based
• Role of therapeutic alliance

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Overcoming Barriers to Treatment

• Physical difficulties
• Pragmatic concerns
• Custody relationships

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Testimonials
Quotes from the Safe Passage women
Safe Passage has been a blessing for me. There
are so many wonderful groups that I have
attended.
Safe Passage is like the needle and thread of my
days. Its slowly putting back together the
pieces of my life
They Safe Passage team see my potential to do
great things and stay on me when I begin to stray
away.
Safe Passage helped me to get my life back on
track.. It is a good support system.
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In Summary

• Traditional correctional programs disregard the
  offenders ability to initiate positive change
  within themselves assumes they are incapable of
  fixing themselves and that they need to be
  fixed by external agents (Herrschaft, et al,
  2009).
• Strengths perspective in social work practice
  attempts to correct destructive emphasis on what
  is wrong, missing or abnormal with the individual
  and shifts focus to seeing individuals in the
  light of their hopes, possibilities and the
  belief in their capacity for change (Saleebey,
  1996).
• Empowerment theory There exists in every
  person, potential for positive change the
  process of increasing personal and interpersonal
  power, individuals are better able to take action
  in order to improve their life situations
  (Gutierrez, 1990).

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The process by which the client reconstructs his
experience is not one the worker creates he/she
simply enters, and leaves..He/she is an incident
in the life of his/her client. Thus the worker
should ask herself what kind of incident will I
represent.How do I enter the process, do what I
have to do, and then leave?

• William Schwartz

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Empowerment
Thank
You
Elizabeth Allen, LCSW Jessica Loss, LCSW
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Comments, Questions, Feedback
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