March 2020 Program Updates
March 5, 2020
It's been a great few months at The Insight Alliance! We have several programs running right now in four different facilities (soon to be six). We continue to receive positive feedback about our programs. Just last week, we received this amazing note from a Correctional Counselor at Coffee Creek:
"I wanted to reach out to thank you for all you are doing at CCCF. I am a Correctional Counselor in the medium facility, and am grateful for your work. The women in your class speak highly of what they are learning. They are coming to me with a completely different level of confidence and belief in themselves after time in your class. It is such an honor to witness. You are doing amazing work!!!"
Other updates include:
Columbia River Correctional Institution
We have our three programs at Columbia River Correctional Institution (CRCI). Starting in April these groups will be run by Monica Mueller, Kary Youman and Charles Kingsley. Which is really exciting as this frees Anna up to run groups in other facilities.
Coffee Creek Correctional Facility
We are finally on our last round of research at Coffee Creek! This means we don't have to exclude participants to be in the randomized control groups. And we're happy for no more paperwork and research packages! We will continue to follow up with our participants to test for longevity, but after 2 years we have the numbers we need. Woohoo!!
In April, we'll be offering our program on the minimum side of Coffee Creek. We've been asked to start our group there for some time by the women who have moved to minimum, but we just haven't had the capacity. Now we do and we can't wait to get started.
MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility
Our group at MacLaren Youth Facility is bursting at the seams (in a good way). We have about 20 youth in this current group, all of whom are in the program because of really positive feedback they received from other graduates. We are in conversation with William Lord High School (within MacLaren) to see about training their teachers to teach Insight to Wellbeing so we can reach the younger youth.
We are partnering with OJRC (Oregon Justice Resource Center) to offer our program at OSCI (Oregon State Correctional Facility) as part of a wider support system for youth aging out of the youth system and transitioning to the adult system.
Washington County Community Corrections
We are also in the middle of a month pilot project with Washington Community Corrections. This is a shorter program offered twice a week for 4 weeks to people who are coming out of jail and need the support transitioning back to the community. It's a shorter program as they are only in this facility for a month or less. It's an interesting opportunity and the participants are really enjoying it.
We've had fun testing out our new curriculum in all these groups and facilities. We're honing it in and fine tuning it, so that we have a great working curriculum and can train more teachers to keep up with the demand for our program.