This is the 2nd part of my learning reflection for the first class day of Leadership Washington County. After we completed our poverty simulations in the morning we hopped on a bus and headed over to Sharpsburg to the MCI-H, a medium security prison. It didn't dawn on me then but I'm just now wondering if society labels the incarcerated members of our society as impoverished or privileged. Certainly, depending on where you are on the incarcerated societal ladder, some folks have more privileges than others.
After lunch, we spent about an hour touring the facilities and learning about some of the programs offered at MCI-H - the cells (are tiny), the visiting area (is one of the last ones in the state to not have an impassable physical barrier between the residents and the visitors), the recreation areas, the work areas (i.e. metal works, meat packaging, etc), and one of the highlights of my day: the dog assistance training program where the residents work with lab/lab-mix puppies and train them to become service animals.
The next hour or so was spent engaging in a panel discussion with four outstanding residents, all of whom were there on life sentences for murder (someone else might need to correct me on this; we didn't have pens and paper to take notes so my memory is shoddy). They told us why they were there but the most interesting pieces focused on the good they were doing within the prison to improve the relationships between residents and staff. One of the residents, Gino, is in charge of a communication committee (it had a better name than that) and he's working with other residents and staff to create classes to teach new and veteran residents new skills on how to break bad habits so they're prepared to interact in more acceptable ways when they leave MCI-H; and for the ones who are at MCI-H for the long haul, these new skills benefit them and their interactions in house.
They also talked about what they think are some of the most important factors in preventing youth from following in their footsteps. They specified quality time and attention from respected adults. They also couldn't stress enough how important it is for adults in authority (parents, teachers, coaches, etc) to just listen without judging. The panelists said that if they weren't so afraid of the repercussions they would've experienced by talking to their parents and/or teachers about normal youth concerns, then they would have opened up more freely and perhaps wouldn't have engaged in less than legal behaviors. One of the programs that they'd like to start or maybe it's already in the works is a mentoring program with MCI-H residents and troubled youth (and their families, too?) in Washington county. I'd love to see this happen.
The last segment of the day was another panel of four human services experts from Washington County. These folks helped to tie the day together - poverty, privilege, charity - and basically they fielded our questions about gaps in the system (i.e. why aren't the human services departments in one centralized area so folks who need these resources don't have to trek all across town - on foot or bus - to get the help they need?) and shared their unique insights on the situation in Washington county. Again - not being able to take notes greatly hampered my retention rate here so, if any of my LWC friends are reading this, please feel free to chime in with your takeaways, too!
All in all it was an extremely eye-opening day. I knew that I didn't know much about Washington County but I didn't realize I didn't know *that* much about Washington County. There are some amazingly generous and charitable people and organizations out there doing some amazing things for folks but at the same time there's a lot of room for improvement which seems to rely, for better or for worse, on funding and priority consensus. You're probably wondering, what does this have to do with your work at the library? Well, I think there's a lot the library can do but it's going to require me to think about this some more which also means you'll have to stay tuned for pt. 3 of this learning reflection.
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