On one hand, I was very familiar with government entities as
a private/contract provider of public services. At the King’s Daughters’ School
we had contracts with The Tennessee Department of Education, The Department of
Mental Health and Mental Retardation, the Department of Children’s Services,
individual school systems from multiple states, multiple contracts from
children’s services agencies from all over the country, insurance companies, and
private individuals. I juggled a lot of
contracts.
On the other hand, I was really naïve as to the entrenched
traditions and biases of the correctional system. I didn’t realize how threatening IFI was to
some long-standing practices and to the very nature of prison itself. (I’m going to write more about that at
another time.)
Needless to say, we had a lot of visitors. Some were blind promoters of our program
without really knowing what we did.
Others were blind opponents of our program that were not interested in
facts or stats. There were a rare few
who really just wanted to come see what we did and if it was effective.
A young lady came (let’s call her Pam, because I can’t remember her name) from a national prison
treatment program entity (let’s call it the National
Therapeutic Community Organization again, that’s totally made-up.) Pam from
NTCO traveled the country assessing and accrediting prison treatment
programs. She and her minions were at Newton
Statistically speaking, prison treatment programs fail
miserably, as does prison itself when it comes to coming back to prison. We were kind of there in Iowa
In came the assessment team, and because I was in charge of
the in-prison treatment program I was the first to be interviewed by Pam. She took copious notes and asked excellent
questions. Near the end of the
interview, our conversation went something like this:
ME: Miss Pam, I want
to tell you something up front about what you will likely find as you assess
our program
PAM: Yes?
ME: You’ll see many
processes you are familiar with.
PAM: Ok?
ME: You’ll see
education groups, insight groups, independent studies, processing groups…
PAM: Yes, go on (as
she begins writing furiously on her yellow legal pad)
ME: You’ll see shared
values and expectations in a community setting…
PAM: Uh-huh (scribble,
scribble, scribble…)
ME: You’ll see peer
counseling, tutoring and accountability…
PAM: (scribble,
scribble, erase. Scribble, scribble…)
ME: You’ll see
community connections and volunteers with pro-social modeling.
PAM: Yessssssss…
ME: Then you’ll se a
lot of outcomes…
PAM:……
ME: You’ll see pro-social
interactions and insight. You’ll notice brighter affects and happiness. You see participants who can clearly
articulate what their crimes were and how it affected their victims, their families
and even themselves…
PAM: Yes, Yes…Yes…
ME: Then you will try
to connect the dots from one particular treatment activity and how it affects a
particular and specific outcome or trait.
PAM: YES! (SCRIBBLE
SCRIBBLE SCRIBBLE…)
ME: But at this point
you’ll become a bit frustrated because on the one hand you’ll have a lot of
varying processes and on the other you’ll see all these wonderful desired
outcomes. But something happens in
between the process and the outcome that you don’t know about and that you
won’t be able to quantify…
PAM:
(SCRRRRRRIIIIIBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLE……)
ME: What happens
between the Process and the outcome is what we like to call,
“A
Miracle.”
PAM: (dead stop……)
What?
ME: A Miracle happens.
The men’s hearts change and they are different people and therefore, do and say
different things. I can’t explain it any differently. A Miracle happens.
Pam walked out of my office in a bit of a daze. I didn’t talk to her again for the rest of
the week as she talked to counselors, inmates, staff and observed everything I
told her she would observe.
Weeks later, a whole team of treatment representatives, DOC
officials, evaluators and prison officials all crowed into the library in
Building, “M” to here the results of our treatment evaluation. When it was time for PAM to report on all of
the specifics, I felt a bit bad for her.
She began her report something like this:
PAM: IFI practices
most of the components of successful therapeutic communities. They utilize a
variety of groups. There is community life and shared accountability. There is pro-social modeling and lots of
education. And the outcomes are good as
evidenced in the lived of the participants. They are positive and pro-social in
their demeanor. They seem hopeful and have solid outlooks for their release.
They are articulate when it comes to their triggers and they have good
plans. Upon looking at the treatment
components and the outcomes there really wasn’t a clear…that is to say… there
really wasn’t a direct link…when trying to….
Then she made probably the best descriptive statement about
IFI I’ve ever heard.
She said:
“For years in the
treatment field we’ve talked a lot about cognitive restructuring. What IFI is
attempting to do is the most difficult kind of restructuring of all, the
restructuring of the heart.”
Well said.
chris
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