Interview with Anna Debenham, Founder and Program Director

October 4, 2023

How did the original idea of taking Insight to Wellbeing into a formal research setting come about?

When I went in for a meeting with Coffee Creek, the head of psychology at Coffee Creek was really excited about Insight to Wellbeing and wanted to bring it into the prison, but said if you want it to be more than a volunteer program, you need to get it researched.

I hadn’t thought about research, but I was in that meeting with Susan Stoltenberg, the Executive Director of the YWCA, and when we were back out in the carpark, she suggested reaching out to Dr. Sarah Bowen, who was at Pacific University and had done a lot of research in mindfulness and addiction. She put me in touch, the three of us met, we had a great meeting and she was interested in taking it on as a project!

Could you tell me a bit more about the research process?

When Pacific University was interested in doing this project, I didn't know anything about research. We talked through what was needed, and the first step was talking to the DOC. I spoke to the research department, and originally, we were told there was no way we were going to get approval as they were slammed.

I didn’t give up hope! When I spoke to Tamara Dickerson in the research department at DOC, she got interested and asked us to put a proposal together, in the same way that Dr. Sarah Bowen did at Pacific University. We had to do a similar process with DOC to present a proposal. They both gave it the thumbs up!

It didn’t take as long as we thought; it was amazing how it seemed to flow.

The initial phase of research was with men at Columbia River, and then the main research was done at Coffee Creek, the medium women’s prison, where we had random control groups.

This research was a longevity study, people filled out forms every 3, 6, and 9 months, and we wanted to see how effective our program was long term.

What partners were involved with this work?

DOC, Pacific University Psychology Department

Now that this curriculum has become evidence-based, and will be published, what do you hope will happen next for Insight to Wellbeing?

A few years ago, we were in conversation with CODA (recovery center), and they were really excited about the program, but said it needs to be evidence-based. Just recently we were invited to OSCI, and they wanted to see evidence-based work. It’s going to help expand and give credibility to places we want to go. The curriculum we created now has evidence behind it, which is helpful in expanding everywhere.

never thought we would do research, and now we have. It’s nice to know that the program we offer in prisons, treatment centers, youth facilities, and the federal systems has been successful. Qualitatively, we’ve known it works; we see the results firsthand in our participants, but it’s nice to have done the research and see the measures: reducing trauma, depression, recidivism and an increase emotional flexibility.

We knew this to be true, but it’s actually nice to have it in a research paper.

The research process was five years long, and COVID put a spanner in the works. We were literally about to do our last class, on Friday March 10, 2020, and my car was full of donuts and soda for our participants and the control groups. But on the Thursday prisons were closed down. We couldn’t return until COVID was over.

I had no idea how much work it was going to be; I really appreciate all of the participants, because they didn't need to be a part of this, but they were.

We came in saying ‘We’re doing research, and some of you will be in the programs, and some in the control groups’. A lot of these women participated because they wanted this program, that they knew worked, to be made available to other people in the prison.

I want to give a huge thank you to all participants who are still incarcerated and to the people who are now out, who made this all possible. It’s their research too. Because of them, the program is going to be taken more seriously and will spread a lot wider because of the research they participated in.