Staff: Mike Leonard, Gracie Rolfe, and Laurie Jo Wallace
In Massachusetts, emerging adults aged 18-25 face higher rates of arrest, incarceration, and reincarceration than those of other age groups. In recent years, the state government and criminal legal system have formally recognized the significance of this period in which the brain finalizes its development – recognizing that young adults are more susceptible to external influence and risky behavior during this period. At the same time, a person’s risk for death by drug overdose in the first two weeks post-release from incarceration is estimated to be nearly 130 times that of the general population.
Several factors can help break the cycle of reincarceration for young adults. These include educational programming, family engagement, positive youth development, and prohibition of harmful correctional practices (e.g., solitary confinement). Proactive education around risk factors, overdose response, and safer use strategies is one tool we have for reducing fatal overdose in our communities. The Violence and Overdose Prevention Training for Incarcerated Young Adults Initiative, funded by the HRiA Innovation Incubator, provides skill-focused training around these topic areas to help incarcerated young adults avoid harmful outcomes related to violence and substance use, access employment, and avoid reincarceration.
Partnering for Change
HRiA has a long-standing relationship with UTEC, an organization that nurtures “the ambition of our most disconnected young people to trade violence and poverty for social and economic success.” Over the past several years, HRiA has partnered with UTEC on the Emerging Adult Re-Entry Initiative (EARI). This state-funded program bolsters programming with incarcerated young adults both pre- and post-release.
Partnering with UTEC on projects such as EARI makes it possible for HRiA to work inside Massachusetts’ correctional facilities. Through EARI, staff were exposed to the unique work of the BRAVE UNIT for emerging adults, which is modeled after juvenile facilities, emphasizing a therapeutic approach and an orientation toward re-entry.
First Year Outcomes
In the first year of the Violence and Overdose Prevention Training for Incarcerated Young Adults Initiative, we trained eleven emerging adult residents and five older adult mentors of the BRAVE (Building Responsible Adults through Validation and Education) Unit at North Central Correctional Institute (NCCI) in Gardner, MA. NCCI houses individuals who have already been convicted and sentenced (as opposed to those awaiting trial or sentencing). This creates an environment where incarcerated men are settled into a long-term housing arrangement and have more time and motivation to pursue educational programming as well as build relationships with their mentors and other mentees.
Numerous training topics were covered including harm reduction, overdose rescue, trauma, pathways of recovery, stigma, conflict resolution, systemic violence, recovery, safety planning, and healthy masculinity. Participants practiced a variety of critical skills along the way, including overdose reversal, motivational interviewing, public speaking, and more. The learning culminated with an impressive set of “teach back” presentations, where pairs of participants worked together to train a new audience on a topic they learned. The materials and slides from these sessions were compiled into a booklet participants received at the conclusion of the training.
This initiative was the HRiA team’s first significant engagement with young adults in the BRAVE Unit. Their kindness, engagement, curiosity, and critical thinking fueled powerful discussions that assumed little, but moved the needle of opinion significantly. At the end of our training, each participant received a certificate acknowledging their work along with verbal affirmations from staff and others.
On the Horizon
This project has deepened our partnership with UTEC. In the first year, 16 of the 23 members of the BRAVE Unit participated in the program. We anticipate a mix of old and new faces joining the second cohort.
The team is in the process of collecting feedback and suggestions from BRAVE members regarding future curricula to probe deeper into first-year topics while introducing new information, materials, and activities. Given the prominent impact of education and employment on recidivism risk, we are also exploring ways our training series could provide college or other post-secondary credit. This will mean bolstering hard and softs skill training to ensure participants are leaving with increased capacity to meet their future goals, whether that be pursuing further education pre- or post-release, securing stable employment (through UTEC’s Circling Home Fellows program), or sharing their knowledge with their community behind and outside the walls.
Ultimately, we envision a world where all people are equipped with the resources, knowledge, and skills to thrive at home in their communities and where incarceration is no longer the outcome for so many of our young adults across Massachusetts.