Welcome and Please Introduce Yourself!

Submitted by Michelle Carson on Mon, 09/10/2012 - 18:39
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Greetings!

Welcome to the Correctional Education group in the LINCS Community! 

Use this space to meet your colleagues and discuss, learn, and share with each other. Please post an introduction about yourself in response to this thread and let everyone know what you would like to gain from your experience in our group.  Also, feel free to post any questions or discussion topics you'd like to engage in exploring with your colleagues.  Remember to check out the redesigned LINCS website resources at http://lincs.ed.gov

Looking forward to the discussions...

Michelle Carson

Comments

I teach GED class in our local jail, as well as assist in regular ABE/GED classes. Most of my correctional students are frequent flyers who are realizing they need to change things in their lives and GED seems a good place to start. In our jail it's about the only educational opportunity they have. Most of my students are there for a limited time, as they are either awaiting hearing/trial or space up the road. I have yet to test any students in-house, but I have several now that are potentially going to push through to completion with me.

Greetings, all!

I'm the subject matter expert of the career pathways group, and I think lots of the information posted in this group will be of interest to some of the members of the career pathways group, and vice versa. I'm joining this group to facilitate information sharing between the 2 groups.  I would be interested in finding out more about the job training available to incarcerated adults, and the follow up of their employment experiences once they are released.

Donna Brian

I teach adult education and GED preparation at our location detention center as well as a treatment facility for Native American men from all over the western United States.  We average 12-15 GED completers at the detention center per year, and less than that at the treatment center.  I am always looking for information to assist our incarcerated students meet their educational goals.

Hi Connie,
Welcome! Does a "Detention Center" designation mean that your learners are younger, perhaps even high school aged, and are they in for lesser time than people who would be in a correctional facility?   Do your detention center learners learn literacy skills in the context of work skills and/or career pathways?  I am assuming you noticed that there is a Career Pathways group as well as this group when you signed up. I'm trying to learn more about correctional education in relation to work skills myself, and that's why I ask.  I look forward to your continued participation in the group.  Thanks for introducing yourself!

Donna

Donna Brian, Ed.D.
Subject Matter Expert, Career Pathways group

 

Greetings from the great state of Montana.  In way of introduction, I am a volunteer Chaplain in our county jail and assist with a faith-based reentry program in our men's prison.  What I would like to gain from my experience in this group are ways to reduce recidivism.

Hi Dave, 

Montana is a beautiful state - I have family living there.  I wonder if you are able to use online learning with your learners? I am currently working on a deployment of our project with county jails. The beauty of the online (or computer based) learning is that it also prepares learners with the technoloyg skills needed for entry into a job market. 

Kathy 

Hi Kathy,

Thanks for the welcome!!  FYI, I am a third generation Montanan who left the state for 15 years (lived in CO, OH and Washington, DC), but returned years ago, to fresh air, mountains, low population density and a place where there are more animals than people :o)

On another FYI, in my job life I am a Community Resource Specialist at Montana State University.  One of my passions is helping create healthy, safe, thriving rural communities.  This mission cannot be accomplished without education and faciliating successful reentry of offenders back into healthy communities.  Unfortunately, we have become a nation that over-incarcerates and under-educates.  Nearly half of those incarcerated in the US never finished high school; in Montana, it is worse - 75-80% of our incarcerated population are school dropouts.  Is that a no-brainer or what?  If we want to stop the tsunami of incarceration in this country, keep kids in school!  Did you know that five states are now spending more on incarceration than higher education?  Sadly, our nation is lacking in investing in prevention with both the criminal justice system and the health care system. Since 90% of the US population has difficulty understanding health care information and negotiating the health care system, improving health literacy is key to improving health outcomes.  The US spends more per person on health care than any other nation in the world, yet we have some of the worst health outcomes (ranking 34th in life expectancy).  One of my pet projects this past year has been improving the health literacy and self-care management skills of inmates in our county jail.  The project was funded by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Pacific NW Region, University of WA, Seattle, WA.  Since inmates in our jail are not allowed internet access, the real challenge was constructing and implementing a health-based educational "internet-in-a-box offline system" on a DVD as a teaching tool.  The jail does have a computer lab with seven computers..............but they are not hooked up to the internet.  We have just completed the year long grant and are in the process of evaluating pre- and post-survey questionnaires and hope to draft a publication soon.

Best wishes in your work,

Dave

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

My name is John Corcoran and I am honored to join you on this forum. I believe that in America today, it is as important to teach an adult to read as it is to teach a child to read.

I learned to read at the age of 48 after going to a local library Adult Learning Center, taking a battery of diagnostic assessments and then receiving the research-based instructional methodology needed to teach me how to read. For the past 25 years, I have been advocating for literacy across the nation with the mission of preventing and eliminating illiteracy by teaching both children and adults to read. It is never too late to learn to read.

I have shared my story in many correctional facilities and have met fellow travelers who have shared my same journey.

I look forward to continuing the conversation with all of you.

At your service,

John Corcoran

Oceanside, CA

Hi Jessie,

Yes, the resources will be freely available in about 30 days or less.  We are just in the process of putting everything on a CD for distribution to interested parties.  We are hoping to make it availabe at no cost; but may have to charge a modest fee to cover the costs of CDs, packaging, shipping and handling.  The first 50 will for sure be free :o)

More about the project: The health-based offline system was designed specifically for use by inmates (or individuals who do not have ready access to the internet) and who are interested in improving their level of health literacy, self-care management skills and personal health care decision-making.  This was not a difficult project to justify based on the following facts: (1) about 90% of American adults have difficulty in understanding health information and navigating the complex health care system (and it will be more challenging with health care reform in process); (2) improving health literacy and self-care management is a national initiative (Healthy People 2020); and, (3) inmates have a disproportionatley high incidence of chronic health conditions, are infrequent users of preventive services, have a history unhealthy behaviors and poor self-care management.  The offline system was developed by the Extension Service at Montana State University in collaboration with several key partners (e.g., National Library of Medicine, USDA, Healthy Roads Media, etc).  The project funded was funded by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Hope that helps...................if you have more questions, please e-mail me (dyoung@montana.edu) or call (406-994-5552).

Best wishes,

Dave Young

Hello All,

About me: I used to be an ABE instructor at a local community college in San Diego, California and I am now a consultant for several learning institutions.

 

Before becoming a teacher, I couldn't spell words correctly and after giving up on all the existing programs, I spent 15 years intensely dissecting English in order to teach myself to spell. Not only did I teach myself to spell, my books now help people spell 20 to 50 words an hour. I turned my weakness into my strength.

 

About COABE: In 1999, I was published with McGraw-Hill and I was easily accepted as a presenter because my publisher got me in without having to submit a proposal. My presentation was a big hit and great things were written about my discoveries. Later on, I quit McGraw-Hill and since then COABE never accepted any of my proposals to present. I would very much like to present again. I still have the teachers' wonderful comments on my Web site and I don't understand this rejection. Does any of you have any tips for me to get COABE to let me present again?

 

Dear Dave, this is the link to the COABE conference: http://coabe.org/conference2013.html

 

Currently, I am Director of Inmate Education for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. We offer ABE, GED, ESL, H.S. Diploma, and about 20 different vocational programs. Of our 19,000 inmates, over 7,000 are receive some form of educational programming.  I am interested in dialoging with others to share ideas about funding, curriculum, and life skills programs.

Brant Choate, Ed.D.

Good Afternoon, LINCS Colleagues.  I direct the rigorous fee-based Professional Certificate Programs in ALECC (Adult Literacy Education Core Curriculum), TESLA (Teaching English as a Second Language to Adults), GED CCSS (Training Teachers to Prepare Students to Take the GED 2014 Using Common Core State Standards), Leadership and Adult Program Management, College Transitions, Community Health Worker (CHW) Core Training, and Social Entrepreneurship - How to Form a 501-c-3 at the LAC (Literacy Assistance Center) Academy in New York City http://lacnyc.org/LACAcademy.  I also head up the Contextualized Curriculum Development Services at the Literacy Assistance Center and have created curricula for correctional programs at CEO (Center for Employment Opportunities) and John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Prisoner Reentry Program in New York City.  I would like to hear about other curriculum efforts across the country.

Hi Everyone,

My name is Kirsten, and I'm an Account Manager at Essential Education. We provide a computer-based GED preparation program called GED Academy that hopefully some of you have heard of. I lead corrections education projects here at the company. I have some expertise to offer concerning the transition to the computer-based GED test, so if anyone has any questions feel free to shoot them my way. I'm happy to help.

I'm passionate about adult education and I recognize the great importance of it within the correctional system. I'm greatly looking forward to learning as much as I can about this topic from all of you. I can already tell there is a wonderful pool of knowledge forming here. :)

 

Kirsten Thomas, Account Manager, Essential Education

 

 

Hello- I am happy to meet you. I am linked in with you and would very much like to network.

 

Melinda Maiterth

Londer Learning Center

Multnomah County

Department of community Justice.

 

Hi, everyone,

My name is Margaret, and I am a Senior Researcher with Research Allies for Lifelong Learning in Vienna, Virginia. We specialize in applying research to support adult educators and learners. Previously I have done research in Kansas adult education and with GED Testing Service. Many years ago I had the opportunity to screen incarcerated adult learners for learning disabilities in prisons in Nevada. In this community I'm looking forward to learning more about adult education in correctional settings. Also I will be glad to share some recent research with the group. Thanks!

Margaret

My name is Velva Hampson, and I am the Senior Librarian at a men's prison in Corcoran, California. I was guided to this resource by Heather Irwin. I (along with one of our Voluntary Education Program teachers) am working with her to bring the COEP (eGranary) tool to our college and high school classrooms as well as to the libraries at our institution. We want to teach research skills and information literacy to our college and high school students. I look forward to participating in the discussions you have here.

Velva Hampson

Senior Librarian

CSATF/SP Corcoran

I work for the Federal Trade Commission, where we've created some free resources to help low-level readers learn about financial literacy and consumer protection. At COABE, lots of people who work in corrections said they'd be useful, so I wanted to reach out to this group.  Our materials are both online (at www.consumer.gov or www.consumidor.gov) and in print. All of them are free. There's info on everything from making a budget and getting a bank account, to your credit history and managing debt, to avoiding scams and identity theft. There's an online budget worksheet (or you can print it off and students can write on it) and other materials for teachers in the "Help for You" section. And for every topic, there's a one-page printed sheet that says what to do about the topic. You can order those for free and have as many as you want shipped to you. (Find out how at the Help for You section of www.consumer.gov.)

 

I'd love to hear feedback or other ideas on the materials, and also on how to better reach out to programs like the ones you all are involved in.

 

Thanks,

Jennifer Leach

Hi,

I am a new ABE I and II teacher at a correctional facility. I hope to learn more here about correctional education here. 

Hi, I work as a literacy tutor for over 14 years and I have created a literacy resource for Adults with literacy difficulties. This workbook contains the 320 most common words and is a 16 week programme that learners can complete with the help of the workbook. By completing this workbook it will give the learner confidence in their ability to learn and entice them to continue learning.

Learn to spell