Phoenix Rising Transitions

Programs: In-the-community mentor project - our certified peer recovery mentor worked with 30 mentees over the course of the year, averaging 12 unique contact encounters with each mentee (average 1 hour or more per contact). Additionally each mentee was exposed to several hours of life skills training in the community. Almost all mentoring and life skills in the community are contracted with impact nw (in portland, oregon). We have two separate contracts with them to do mentoring.

phoenix transitional housing - for people coming out of prison. The objective is to acclimate ex-cons to a successful life in the community so they won't return to crime and prison. Residents must participate in phoenix mentor project because the link between housing, mentor meetings and life skills development together strengthen the likelihood of success. There were 9 residents over the year. The house has the capacity for six residents at a time. The average stay is 7. 3 months. The house has been more stable (longer stays and more rents kept up-to-date) since our house manager is in his second year there and all participants have actively engaged in our mentor project. (he is a graduate of our projects in the prison and in the community. ) the house is funded through rents paid by the residents and rental assistance to residents through impact nw when they participate in our mentor project.

community inreach (in-prison mentoring) - we taught a weekly leadership class in the prison to 53 prisoners over the course of the year. We convene a leadership class (2 hours) and a life skills class (2 hours) each week. We hired a part-time life skills coach/facilitator in september 2016 who specializes in a program called the three principles. There were 1,228 contact hours with students during the year. We teach a 12-hour intensive on leadership skills that sets the agenda for the class the rest of the year. We graduated 8 people from our july 2016 training and another 11 in march 2017. These students in turn become class leaders and help teach future trainings. If they remain with phoenix in the community, they may be eligible to become mentors. The most important characteristic about our prison inreach is that we take in community volunteers to almost every single class. Over the course of the year, 55 volunteers came into our classes (in addition to three staff members). These volunteers are ohsu students and professors, national university of natural medicine medical students, members of churches, and members of institutions that are part of metropolitan alliance for common good (macg). Macg is a community organizing collective. We use a version of their leadership training to teach men in prison about personal and community transformation for better. The focus is a culture of positive relationships built on one-on-one conversations around a directed topic (e. G. , what are the pressures in your life? ) and reporting out to the large group. These one-on-one conversations with community members normalize community contact before release and give hope that one may become a positive, contributing member of society. In addition, community members are transformed by the experience and are more motivated to work with those coming home (as 95% of all prisoners do) to help them succeed and become actively engaged citizens. When people get out of prison, they may participate in training and actions through macg. This year, phoenix staff and two mentees traveled to salem to testify on behalf of a bill before the oregon legislature to allow ex-cons to pay off court fees, fines and supervision fees with community service hours. This bill passed unanimously!

the impact of incarceration on health - we continue to work with the school of nursing at the oregon health & science university, serving as a practicum site for two students (most terms) taking their "population health" class - specifically looking at the impact of incarceration on health. Student teams attend phoenix classes at the prison and any events or trainings we hold in the community. They also interact with the men in the phoenix house for their projects. We worked with four teams from ohsu during the year. They build on the collective knowledge gathered from their peers (through research and in-person interviews with prisoners/ex-cons in our program) from term to term. Students completed a booklet: "release date: a relational perspective on transition from prison" (36 pages); a set of audio interviews with men in our program; a workshop for stress reduction for the in-prison class demonstrating practical approaches to reducing stress while in prison and beyond; and the fourth group made a presentation to the prisoners about taking charge of their own health. In addition to ohsu son students, we had a nursing student from boise state university who trained the in-prison class about choosing health insurance, a primary care physician and preparing for an office visit. And finally, we had students from the national college of natural medicine join us (about once a month - 14 students and one naturopathic doctor) to train the men in the prison class about healthy diet, natural pain management, self-massage and other things they can do on right now in the prison - and on their own after they get out - to live healthier lives. This is critical because health problems are staggering for those getting out of prison. They are 12. 9% more likely to die within the first two weeks of release from all causes compared to the general population. We received a grant from union pacific railroad to assist with our health care initiatives. Some of this work is geared toward speaking to medical professionals and students to increase their awareness of the issues prisoners/ex-cons face in terms of their health. We made presentations to ohsu son classes (three times); a large convocation of medical students at national university of natural medicine; and to the community outreach group at legacy emanuel hospital (all in portland, oregon). In addition, ohsu son students made presentations at wallace medical concern in gresham, oregon. Also, several students taking the population health class at ohsu joined our prison class as visitors even though they aren't doing their practicum with us. It is still more contact with community members for the class and it acclimates the visitors to the issues prisoners face in their health care and other areas of their lives.