Q&A
Improving participation in educational programs in jail facilities
1:01:21
·
160 sec
Helen Skipper addresses the issue of low participation in voluntary educational and other programming inside jail facilities, offering insights on how to improve engagement and the overall culture.
- Skipper emphasizes the need to examine and improve the culture within the facilities, focusing on staff training and creating a more welcoming atmosphere.
- She discusses the importance of addressing safety concerns to encourage program participation.
- Skipper introduces the concept of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, suggesting that basic needs must be met before individuals can engage in higher-level activities.
- She advocates for implementing the right type of programming with appropriate instructors to increase participation and support rehabilitation efforts.
Keith Powers
1:01:21
Thanks.
1:01:22
The DOC in my time when I was the chair of the committee, I had seen this con concern often, which has reported that many cursory individuals are not in are not participating in voluntary educational or other programming.
1:01:38
Inside the facilities.
1:01:40
How does the POC help improve those programs or the minimum address that concern that there's many program being offered to many individuals or not taking advantage of it.
Helen Skipper
1:01:54
So that's a thank you for that question, and that you just unpacked the whole lot.
1:01:58
First of all, you need to look at the culture.
1:02:00
And in order to look at the culture, We need to look at staff.
1:02:04
We need to look at training.
1:02:06
We need to look at how they lean into.
1:02:10
And appear during the course of everyday action.
1:02:13
A lot of people don't wanna attend programs, and they also talk about being a safety issue.
1:02:19
As we reflect on training, as we build out training, as we kind of we work the culture of incarceration as we lean more to a trauma informed rehabilitative portion I believe that those concerns about safety will be tamped down.
1:02:41
And another thing I spoke of was Maslow's Law of Hierarchy, which basically states that as we attend to the most basic of needs, we kinda move up and we kinda step up.
1:02:53
So the most basic of needs depend on the physiological, which is things like food, water, and shelter.
1:02:59
The next part is safety, which is about personal security.
1:03:05
Is about being able to feel secure wherever you are.
1:03:10
It means this Maslow's law of hierarchy also goes to staff as well.
1:03:16
Staff is only as good as the as their train, as their supervisors who provide that welcoming atmosphere.
1:03:24
And that does bleed into the culture that is now permeating agricultural spaces on Bracken's alley.
1:03:32
We need programming.
1:03:33
And I believe if we instill the right type of programming given by the right type of people, People will attend because not everybody wants to lay it on and take it for me.
1:03:45
I spent 25 years going in and out.
1:03:47
Nobody wants to sit there and play cards in the day wrong.
1:03:50
All day.
1:03:52
We want something that is productive and something that can help rehabilitate us as we look to.
1:03:58
Moving outside of the system.