Faith Based Partnerships and Offenders \u2013 “UDC Sound Advice” \u201cFaith Based Partnerships and Offenders\u201d features a discussion with a policy maker within the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, a Cluster Coordinator with CSOSA’s Mentoring Faith Based Program and an individual currently under CSOSA supervision.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Guests for this program:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n The show is hosted by Shelly Broderick, Dean of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) David A. Clarke School of Law.<\/p>\n See http:\/\/media.csosa.gov<\/a> for our radio shows, blog and transcripts.<\/p>\n Television Program available at \ufeff\ufeffhttp:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/video\/2011\/05\/faith-based-partnerships-and-offenders-udc-sound-advice\/<\/a><\/p>\n We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov<\/a> or at Twitter at http:\/\/twitter.com\/lensipes<\/a>.<\/p>\n [Video Begins]<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Hello, I\u2019m Shelley Broderick, Dean of the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law and your host for Sound Advice.\u00a0 In the District of Columbia, approximately 70% of convicted offenders serve some portion of their sentence in the community.\u00a0 As such, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (or CSOSA)\u2019s effective supervision of convicted offenders provides a crucial service to the courts and paroling authority and is critical to public safety.\u00a0 Establishing partnerships with other criminal justice agencies, faith institutions, and community organizations is very important in order to facilitate close supervision of the offenders in the community, and to leverage the diverse resources of local law enforcement, human service agencies, and other local community groups.\u00a0 Approximately 2,500 men and women return home to the District of Columbia from prison every year.\u00a0 Among the challenges they face are the need for housing, health care, education, and employment.\u00a0 With me today to discuss how CSOSA meets these challenges are Cedric Hendricks, Associate Director, Reverend Kelly Wilkins, Cluster A Coordinator, and Tonya Mackey, successful returned citizen and day care assistant.\u00a0 Welcome.<\/p>\n Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Let me start with you, Cedric.\u00a0 We go back many years.\u00a0 It\u2019s so nice to have you on the show.<\/p>\n Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 And I don\u2019t get complacent, we\u2019ll get you back, too!\u00a0 Because you have a lot to talk about.\u00a0 Tell us what CSOSA\u2019s mission is and what its reach is, because it\u2019s hugely important in the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 CSOSA is a public safety agency responsible for supervising men and women on probation, parole, and supervised release.\u00a0 So we have about 16,000 individuals under supervision on any given day, and about 60% of them are on probation, meaning that they went to court, were sentenced, and went home, and then about 40% are on parole or supervised release, meaning that they experienced a period of incarceration and have come back home.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 And what are, and you know, it\u2019s such a crime what we do, because when we send people to prison, we don\u2019t provide education, we don\u2019t help people get the housing they need, and we don\u2019t, you know, we just don\u2019t take care of business, and so often, people come back and don\u2019t make it.\u00a0 And so that safety net that CSOSA is helping to provide is just critical to people being able to succeed.\u00a0 So how many folks work at CSOSA?<\/p>\n Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 We have about 900 employees that work at the agency, and we\u2019re a fairly unique federal agency because our mission is focused solely on the District of Columbia, and so the men and women that we supervise, for the most part, are residents here, and what we are trying to help them do is successfully complete their periods of supervision which can involve a few months to several years, and so what we see across the board, and this is what those who are on probation as well as those who have returned home is that, as you\u2019ve indicated, housing, health care, education, and employment are the major challenges that they face, and so we\u2019re very active in trying to partner with the District government, the faith community, and nonprofit resource and service providers to try and help those we supervise meet the needs that they have.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Tonya, let me turn to you.\u00a0 You\u2019re a returned citizen.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 You were locked up for how long?<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 For about five years.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 And you came back to the District of Columbia?<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 All set, you were ready to go, everything was perfect?<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Not –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 No, okay.\u00a0 It\u2019s not surprising.\u00a0 How did you, you went to CSOSA, because you were required to –<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Exactly, for reentry.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 And tell me what advice they gave you.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 The advice they gave me was just some little simple things that, at first, didn\u2019t sound so simple, but I knew I wanted my freedom and I wanted to be on the street, and so I did what was necessary.\u00a0 It took, it wasn\u2019t all good, but at the end, I\u2019m on top because I\u2019m successfully completed, and through CSOSA, what they told me was, is that I needed to, I needed to get some help from some other women, and a lot of times, women like me never really wanted to communicate with other women because we didn\u2019t, I didn\u2019t think that we had anything in common but being a woman, but thank god that CSOSA sent me to a faith based program where I met Reverend Kelley, who is now my spiritual guidance, and I have a mentor from a program which is from women based empowerment, it\u2019s a program called Empowerment for Women.\u00a0 Ms. Mignonne who teaches it, I got a whole lot out of it, and what they help me to do was deal with my mom, coming home in society, dealing with other women, dealing with getting an education, dealing with how to ask someone how you get housing, where to go and ask, believing in myself again and believing in God, and –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Talk about your mom.\u00a0 Talk about your mom.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 My mom, who has been there with me for my whole entire life, she, I have always done, I felt like I have always done wrong to her, and now I\u2019m trying to make a difference in her life and my life, actually my life first, and then her life, because that\u2019s the only way I can do it.\u00a0 My mom is a cancer survivor, she\u2019s been diagnosed, she just –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 She just found out.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 – just found out she was diagnosed with cancer, and I went on actually my first cancer walk with her last year, so –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Wow.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 – to be, the grace of God, and I always say, to be, to God, because without him, I know that I wouldn\u2019t be on this journey, and other people that help me along the way so far, CSOSA, and faith based led program.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 So you came out of all this in West Virginia –<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 – and you came back, and one of the first things that happened is you found out your mom had cancer.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Now is that the kind of stress that can really – Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Would have.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s the kind of thing that makes people go back on drugs.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Exactly.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 As one of my friends, a drinker, says, what\u2019s so great about reality?\u00a0 You know, right?\u00a0 So it\u2019s one of those things that can just turn you upside down.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Exactly.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Reverend Wilkins.\u00a0 You met Tonya around that time.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Yes, actually, I did, and Tonya, when I first met her, she came to the group.\u00a0 It was Purpose Empowerment, women\u2019s empowerment group.\u00a0 She came to the group, and she really was not participating that much.\u00a0 You know, she really didn\u2019t want to be there.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t really see the reason why she needed to be around a bunch of women because she had never really had any bonding relationships with women before, and so I would say about, let\u2019s say two months into the program, they started in December, somewhere about February, we had that, we had awful snow in the District of Columbia, and I remember people in the group calling me saying, is there a way we can still meet at the church?\u00a0 And I\u2019m thinking, like, no, there\u2019s no way!<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 We can\u2019t get there!<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 So the facilitator who was just, she created the program, and she\u2019s completely committed to it, figured out a way for them to talk on the phone, to really deal with whatever stresses they were dealing with, being locked in the house because of the snow, so I mean, awesome support for Tonya, and I saw her grow.\u00a0 I mean, she just grew so phenomenally from December, and she graduated in May, the first week of May.\u00a0 So yeah, it was a 17-week program at that time.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 What does that feel like?\u00a0 Was it hard at first?<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 At first, yes.\u00a0 I was like, didn\u2019t want to be there, I wasn\u2019t going to participate, I was going to go pass and go through –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Check it off your list.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Right, right.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Check it off.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 But after a while, you know, even after I finished the program, now I\u2019m returning back.\u00a0 So it was real, it was a real blessing to me because now I have, like Ms. Kelly says, I have women that I can call, we can talk, we can bond.\u00a0 We can talk about anything that\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 What kinds of things?<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 We talk about how we hurt our families, we talk about how we can make a difference in other people\u2019s lives, how I can come back, and this right here is even a blessing to me, because I was like, oh wow, somebody\u2019s calling me and asking me to be a power attraction to someone else, whereas I had low self esteem, low self worth, didn\u2019t think that I could become better than what I am today, and I feel real good about where I am today, and where I\u2019m at today is that I\u2019m helping my mom, even with her cancer, the part of surviving, you still have to go back and get treatments, but I\u2019ve been able to be accountable today.\u00a0 You know, I\u2019m not stealing her money today.\u00a0 I\u2019m not lying today.\u00a0 You know, it feels real good.\u00a0 You know, a lot of times, she still may have doubt, but that\u2019s not up to me.\u00a0 As long as I stay on this path, I know that everything\u2019s going to be all right, because she\u2019s along with me to take care of her children today, that she had just started her business, her own day care business, so now I am an assistant to her, and it feels real good, and like I said, I graduated from the empowerment, women\u2019s empowerment program, and I still go back, and I still constantly go down to the courts every now and again, and just to hear cases, and to find out how I used to be and how I can go back, and I don\u2019t want to go back.\u00a0 I want to stay where I\u2019m at today, and being here with you guys makes me feel so good, lets me know that I\u2019m accomplishing something.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 It lifted me up, I\u2019ll tell you that!\u00a0 I was a defense attorney for a long time, and I watched some of my clients go away for a good long period of time, and it\u2019s heartbreaking, and sometimes you can feel like it can be a good thing, just put a stop in the action, get away, it\u2019s not a good place you ever want to send anybody, but get to a place where you\u2019re out of this environment and get it together and come back and make it work, and you know, for so many people, it doesn\u2019t work because they come back and they don\u2019t have the safety net and the support system and the help.\u00a0 You come back, you can\u2019t get into housing.\u00a0 You can\u2019t get public housing.\u00a0 Okay, where are you supposed to, oh, back in the old neighborhood!<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Yeah, and let me just say, support is very critical to recovery and reentry.\u00a0 Without support, we can\u2019t do it by ourselves.\u00a0 Even the faith, the faith based community can\u2019t assist returning citizens by themselves.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we need Court Services to be a partner with us.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Tell me what the partnership looks like.\u00a0 How do you enter in?<\/p>\n Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 We came to recognize at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency that we couldn\u2019t do it by ourselves, and that we really needed to have solid partnerships with the natural resources, the natural systems in the community.\u00a0 There are many neighborhoods in the District of Columbia where you can find a church on every block, and all of these faith institutions have ministries. They\u2019re about the business of serving their congregations and their communities in a wide variety of ways, and so what we saw to do was tap into that network.\u00a0 So back in 2002, we put out a call to the faith community through using a strategy called re-entry Sunday, and through having collaboration, communication with faith institutions, we were able to build a network that was willing to work with us, and from the congregations of those faith institutions, many men and women came forward to serve as mentors for those men and women who had come home from prison.\u00a0 So that work continues to this day, and we continue to match men and women who are coming home with mentors so that they can have someone to talk to, as Tonya indicated, many of our mentors are returned citizens as well, and we\u2019re allied with faith institutions across the city who are opening their doors to be helpful in so many wonderful ways.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 That\u2019s fantastic.\u00a0 So my first job at a college was at Lorton Prison doing group therapy with inmates.\u00a0 Now why did they hire a 21-year-old white girl?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know!\u00a0 What were they thinking?\u00a0 But anyway, you know, I learned way more than I taught, and I had an opportunity to meet a lot of guys who it was clear to me didn\u2019t need to be there.\u00a0 Guys who got in trouble when they were real young, just 20 to life, right?\u00a0 20 to life is what everybody got.\u00a0 And they just did maybe 15 years of that, no education, no job training, just, and they were poets: smart, interesting, thoughtful people being wasted, and I think it had a huge amount to do.\u00a0 Actually in college, I worked at a halfway house on Euclid Street for inmates within six months of release.\u00a0 I was at AU, I didn\u2019t know anything.\u00a0 But I was interested.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why.\u00a0 And then I ultimately went to law school and became a defense attorney.\u00a0 So this is a world that I care very deeply about, and I\u2019m so glad to hear, because it really, it\u2019s so important to put these families back together, because what happens is the kids don\u2019t know Dad or Mom, and there, it\u2019s just, it\u2019s destructive forever if we can\u2019t make this kind of connection and help you make it work.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 That\u2019s what, actually, I was getting ready to say something on that part right there about you saying that a lot of times, the parents, you know, don\u2019t really have the time to be there, and then they get subjected to some things you might have just one father, one mother trying to do the best that they can, and a lot of times, we make our own decisions too, you know, but when we get the help that we need.\u00a0 I know it\u2019ll be a lot more than me that would do better than they\u2019re doing.\u00a0 It\u2019s just that we have to want to do the best that we can, and today, I\u2019m just choosing, saying, I wasn\u2019t great, I wasn\u2019t good all my life, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m here saying that if we put forth the effort, we can be the best people that, we can be whatever we want to be.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 It\u2019s a wonderful think.\u00a0 So Reverend Wilkins, talk about your church and how this came about for you and –<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Well –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 We love your church, and we want to give them full credit.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 I attend Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ, which is on South Capitol Street SW.\u00a0 My pastors are Drs. Christine and Dennis Wiley, and at our church, I serve as the associate minister of social justice and reentry, and we also have a nonprofit, which is called Covenant Full Potential Development Center, and that\u2019s really how we are able to work with Court Services is through our nonprofit organization, and our church, we have a, we\u2019re a very progressive church.\u00a0 We have a very strong social justice stance in our community, so we, this is our area.\u00a0 We believe that helping the least of these is our calling and our job.\u00a0 We\u2019re located in Ward 8, and Ward 8, which most of the returning citizens return home to Ward 8, a large portion of them, and it\u2019s a lot of poverty in Ward 8, and –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 And not very many jobs.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Not many jobs –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Not housing that –<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 – folks have access to.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 But they\u2019re good people in Ward 8, and they just need the support, and they need the support of our faith community as well as our federal agencies, and I think advocacy is really at the top, and when we look at returning citizens, I think the environment, the whole attitude towards returning citizens has begun to change because of advocacy in the community.\u00a0 There are plenty of advocacy groups, and our church tries to partner with as many as possible so people know that, you know, just because you were incarcerated doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re not a person, that you\u2019re not human, that you don\u2019t deserve a second chance, that you did pay your dues, so it\u2019s time to allow people to have a second chance, and so our church takes that stand as the lead institution for 7 and 8.\u00a0 When you say Cluster A coordinator, that means I actually recruit mentors and services for 7 and 8, but we do a lot of citywide events and services as well, and so part of our church\u2019s stance on returning citizens is, not to be silent about it.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not be silent about incarceration anymore.\u00a0 I think the, particularly, African American community has felt ashamed about incarceration, where you talk about the number of years that people went away, and we didn\u2019t know the impact of that in our own families.\u00a0 It has exacerbated our families in our communities.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 It\u2019s so true.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 And so we didn\u2019t know what the impact of that was going to be, but what has happened is, particularly the black church, but our faith institutions, have always had a strong social justice stance, and so incarceration wasn\u2019t a part of that.\u00a0 So it is the tendency for churches and faith institutions to be silent about it.\u00a0 So we want our partners to talk about incarceration: the pain, the struggle of the family, the needs, all of that.\u00a0 We want to educate pastors and tell them, look, don\u2019t be quiet about incarceration in your family.\u00a0 You have people in your pews who are returning home or families who are struggling because of a family member missing, and so that\u2019s the kind of things that we want to educate our community and our faith partners on as well.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 It really, you know, when I was a little girl in Maine, there was a prison called Thomason Prison, and they had a store.\u00a0 They had people doing crafts.\u00a0 And so every time we went past there, we used to go into the store, they had prison inmates working in the store, you know, getting close to getting out, so I grew up thinking prisoners were all white, because in Maine, they\u2019re all white, and they\u2019re really good at crafts!\u00a0 I still have this set of three paintings that we got.\u00a0 I still have the stool in my kitchen made at the prison.\u00a0 My sister gave us each Christmas stocking gifts last summer, all from the prison, because that was my conception as a kid.\u00a0 You know, and because the prisoners I knew were getting close to coming out, it was just all very natural and, you know, we don\u2019t do that.\u00a0 We send our prisoners a million miles away.\u00a0 They are completely hidden from society, and we don\u2019t have that kind of easy give and take back and forth that I experienced.<\/p>\n Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Well, you know, one of the challenging things about the District of Columbia is that the District\u2019s prison, Lorton, that you mentioned you worked at closed back in 2001, and all of our inmates were dispersed across the United States.\u00a0 And that has made it, I think, extremely difficult to maintain contact with your loved ones.\u00a0 So if you were locked up in Louisiana, Idaho, you\u2019re not going to get visits from your family.\u00a0 It\u2019s even going to be challenging to get phone calls from your family, and if you\u2019re away for five years, as you\u2019ve mentioned, and you don\u2019t have regular contact with your support system, it does create, I think, challenges to come back, and so it is essential that we have mentors from faith institutions to kind of step in while folks are coming back trying to reestablish connections with the community, because sometimes families are slow to embrace their loved ones when they come home.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 They\u2019re mad.\u00a0 Sometimes they\u2019re mad because you left them.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 – you took my stuff and, hey, I just don\u2019t want to be bothered with you, I felt you have to prove a point to me, and I\u2019ve been there, because that in and out of, coming out of jail and nobody believing in you because you said it over and over again, so when do you change?\u00a0 When do we stop?\u00a0 It has to. Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 But you have to make a community.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 First of all, Alderson is, what, six hours away?\u00a0 You were just right around the corner in West Virginia, but six hours, that\u2019s crazy!\u00a0 You can\u2019t, like, there\u2019s no plane there.\u00a0 It is a trek!\u00a0 It is so hard.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 And if you have children, how do they eat in the ride going down there, when they get down there, do you drive six hours, and then you visit an hour, and then you drive six hours back?<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 And can you afford to stay in a hotel?\u00a0 Is there a hotel anywhere nearby?\u00a0 A motel or anything?\u00a0 No, it\u2019s crazy.\u00a0 And then, they don\u2019t lock women up very often unless they\u2019ve got a history, so you –<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Yeah, I had a history.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 You did, in and out –<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 In and out of jail.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 – locally and all that.\u00a0 So you had a mountain to climb.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Exactly.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 You had a mountain to climb.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Exactly.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 So talk to me about your mentor.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 Well, what happens is, a lot of times, when I go to my other program, Empowered by Women, we stay in touch, me and Ms. Mignonne, and me and Ms., my mentor, we stay in touch, Ms. Kelly, and what happens is, just like she called me today, and she was like, well, I need to kind of like, help me out.\u00a0 I\u2019m in a spot.\u00a0 Not a problem, and that\u2019s what it\u2019s about, me being accountable today.\u00a0 Even though I was at work –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 I see that.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing you don\u2019t wear that on Saturday.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 But thank god that I\u2019m able to do that today!\u00a0 You know, thank god I was able, like I said, not just come home and get a job, because I still have some things that I have to do, but I\u2019m just helping my mom, because like, she\u2019s going through her cancer situation, which I know God already having, and I\u2019m her only child to speak about it, so I took my mom, when I got locked up, she was locked up, and a lot of us don\u2019t realize that until after we get a certain amount of clean time, people in our life who we can share the real gut level things about how you treated your moms when you was on the street, and then a lot of people don\u2019t have their mom, so I\u2019m real grateful today that I have my mom to talk to, and like I said, I talked to Ms. Willis and them, and Ms. Kelly, like, on a regular, because it\u2019s like, I need people in my life to keep me on the right track when I need to stay outside of myself, when I get angry, and it feels like there\u2019s nobody in my corner, you know, I\u2019ve learned how to pray.\u00a0 I mean, it\u2019s like, I talk to God, at first I was like, I don\u2019t know how, I don\u2019t know where, but I\u2019m like, God, can you just help me.\u00a0 Next thing I know, there\u2019ll be a phone call.\u00a0 I\u2019m here.\u00a0 And that\u2019s only through the grace of God, because, hey, I always wanted to become a positive role model.\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t know how.\u00a0 So today, I\u2019ve learned how to become a better person and a better human being.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 We\u2019ve got about four more minutes.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got two, and you\u2019ve got two.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Okay, great!<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 What else do we need to know?<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Through the faith-based initiative, we look for faith partners.\u00a0 I\u2019m always\u2026<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 You\u2019re recruiting right now.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins: I guess, I\u2019m always recruiting mentors, and I\u2019m always trying to recruit services that will help our returning citizens –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 How do you become a mentor?\u00a0 Somebody who actually wants to, hey, you know what, I\u2019d like to work with somebody like Tonya!\u00a0 I think I could do that!\u00a0 I like her, and I could do that.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Be a concerned citizen.\u00a0 We are looking for concerned citizens.\u00a0 We have a mentor training that, a mandatory mentor training that we ask that you go through.\u00a0 There\u2019s the application and interview process, and then once you complete that process, then what happens on a regular basis is CSOSA refers clients to me.\u00a0 Their parole officers, or what they call Community Supervision Officers, refer clients to us, and we will match those clients with a concerned citizen in the community, and that person, just an hour or two a week, just to make sure they\u2019re talking to their mentees and making sure, maybe they may have certain needs.\u00a0 We create a mentor plan for them, each individual in the mentor plan.\u00a0 So making sure their needs are getting met –<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 I lied.\u00a0 We only have one more minute.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 You only have one more minute?\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 I\u2019m going to give it to you –<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 No problem.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 And then you\u2019re going to have to come back.<\/p>\n Kelly Wilkins:\u00a0 Okay, no problem.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 That\u2019s what it\u2019s going to have to take.<\/p>\n Cedric Hendricks:\u00a0 Well, let me just say, at CSOSA, what we\u2019re after are people successfully completing their community supervision, and that\u2019s why Tonya\u2019s here with us as an example of what is possible.\u00a0 And so we want to let the community know that, in order to realize the success, we need help.\u00a0 We partnered with the faith community, we actively partnered with the District of Columbia government, so anybody listening who wants to join this effort, they should contact me at 220-5300, and we\u2019ll pull them into the network of help and support.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 Absolutely fantastic.\u00a0 I am so glad, especially you, Tonya, but for both of you, just to have you on and let people know there are so many positive things going on, and there is a place to get help and to get support.<\/p>\n Tonya Mackey:\u00a0 There\u2019s hope.\u00a0 There\u2019s hope.<\/p>\n Shelly Broderick:\u00a0 If you are interested in learning about CSOSA and reentry programs regarding men and women returning home from prison, please visit CSOSA\u2019s website at www.csosa.gov and click on the offender reentry link or call Cedric Hendrick\u2019s at 202-220-5300.\u00a0 CSOSA and their faith partners, partnerships, are committed to assisting our returning citizens come home and stay home.\u00a0 They invite the public to assist them with achieving that goal.\u00a0 I\u2019m Shelley Broderick.\u00a0 Thanks for watching, and please join me next time for more Sound Advice.<\/p>\n [Video Ends]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Faith Based Partnerships and Offenders \u2013 “UDC Sound Advice” \u201cFaith Based Partnerships and Offenders\u201d features a discussion with a policy maker within the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, a Cluster Coordinator with CSOSA’s Mentoring Faith Based Program and an individual currently under CSOSA supervision. 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\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\nTonya Mackey:\u00a0 – take me back out, or would have.<\/p>\n
\nShelly Broderick:\u00a0 Well, you make a good point –<\/p>\n