a program supporting women in prison

For seventeen years I have volunteered providing confidential emotional support and listening to women through a program I manage in a state women’s prison in Washington. I began doing this work in 2006 with the organization SHANTI. Today (2024) I have new projects in the works, as well as an additional volunteer! In 2018 I initiated a peer process group: Good Grief, where women joined and co-created a safe space to support one another in processing grief, loss, and other experiences. And this year we created a grief library. In March of this year I also initiated the new program: Painting Inside Out. Here, I guide participants in using creative self-expression for self-care, personal healing, to process grief and other emotion, and to tell and honor their stories (in private and abstract ways).

My hope and aim for the future is to expand this work further so we may continue to support the transformational recovery, reconnection, and restoration of women (currently and formerly incarcerated) into our communities.

Please reach out to learn more about—or support—this work.

 

a fund for children of incarcerated women

In the spring of 2021 I created a fund to directly support programs that benefit children of incarcerated women in Washington state. To this fund I donated 20% of all sales of artwork in 2021. If you want to support this work, please be in touch —or you’re welcome to make a donation today.


As of August of 2021 we raised $1,300!


 
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(past) peer process group: Good Grief

The aim of this group is to utilize the support, knowledge, and wisdom each person brings; to mend and strengthen our relationships with one another (and ourselves) by creating a safe, confidential, respectful, and nonjudgmental environment to share and process; to understand our stories as they are contextualized in the larger environment and world; and to heal and help ourselves so we may be of support to others. A major component of our approach is acceptance. This pertains to being willing to listen to and be present with difficult feelings—both within ourselves and in hearing from others. 

 

my story

I began volunteering at Washington Corrections Center for Women in 2007, having done similar work previously at the King County Jail in Seattle. This was work connected to a nonprofit, Shanti, where I trained as a volunteer in 2005. This work, with incarcerated people, was part of a program called the Shanti Inmate Support Project. Shanti initially formed in the 1980's (as well as in San Francisco) to support people diagnosed with HIV. Shanti trained volunteers to provide confidential, non-judgmental support to people in the community who were isolated, vulnerable, stigmatized, and experiencing grief and loss. In the late 1990's this was extended to incarcerated individuals through Shanti's ISP. Seattle Shanti dissolved in 2013 due to funding cuts by its parent nonprofit, but the inmate support work continued through a small handful of people at WCCW, Monroe, and King County Jail. I was the lead and only such volunteer at WCCW from 2007-2023. Prior to Shanti's dissolution, I helped plan and facilitate several four-day training programs for new volunteers. Currently I meet 1:1 with about 20 women each month, and seem to always have new referrals awaiting a first meeting. My primary role is as listener, being present to the difficult experiences these women are navigating. Some people I meet with for a relatively short period of time (a few months), and others I have supported over many years. 

Nonprofit sector experience spans most of my adult working life. For over twenty-five years, the people I’ve interacted with professionally have been impacted by one or more, sometimes many or all, of the following: trauma, disability, addiction, dementia, chronic illness or injury, loss, incarceration, isolation, stigmatization.

Incarceration is something that has touched my family.

As a visual artist, I experience the inherent usefulness and restorative power of creativity and self-expression. Since 2006 I’ve sold and exhibited works in and around Seattle. I envision developing a program (or partnering with the right nonprofit) to support children of incarcerated mothers in accessing volunteer mentors and other resources—and I am deeply interested in how the arts might play an explicit role in this aim. Arts are a tremendously valuable tool to find one’s voice, tell one’s story, and process and transform one’s experiences and grief. Combining my passions in this work is my goal. In addition to this endeavor, I hope to eventually expand the volunteer presence at WCCW, doing related work, and also extend it to provide much-needed transitional support to women working to reintegrate into communities and establish meaningful lives post-incarceration.

In 2024 I begin a pilot program at WCCW, Painting Inside Out, where I will guide participants in using creative self-expression for self-care, personal healing and liberation, and to share and process stories and emotion.

If you want to assist us in future volunteer training, travel, toll bridge expenses, or donate supplies like books, journals, art supplies, please be in touch.

 
 
 
 
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