Tag: recovery

This presentation was first delivered at a Correctional Service Canada Offender Wellness Program.

The content reflects Better Life Integration & Support’s discovery that addressing trauma (PTSD, large “T” Trauma) is an important element for Offenders to enter into a healthy community reintegration pathway and experience a new and better life.

One of the constant responses I get, when I say I work in Federal Offender Community Reintegration, is the belief that offenders can not be rehabilitated.

In complete alignment with the evidence-based research that continues to emerge, my personal experience with Better Life Integration & Support has been that this is a destructive myth. A myth inflamed by media headlines that amplify the horrors of recidivism (reoffending) and embed this belief in a single possible (inevitably negative!) outcome across Canadian society.

In many cases, the issue isn’t that offenders can’t be rehabilitated. Rather, it’s that there has not been an intentional reintegration pathway back into the community for them.

In other words, offenders often serve their time and are released into the community (usually into a halfway house and under the supervision of a parole officer), but without a community to welcome them, engage them in pro-social activity, and to continue to address the challenges that often led to their offence in the first place.

This is where Better Life has had the opportunity to make a real difference in outcomes—connecting offenders to the life-changing difference church communities can have in supporting these women and men to experience a new and better life. Throughout the Pacific Region (BC and the Yukon), church communities that welcome and support parolees with intentional, faith based, reintegration practices are radically impacting the lives of parolees.

While the reasons for criminal activity and recidivism are many, we recognize the widespread and deep impact of trauma on the human brain, and Better Life is stepping up our support in this area through a wellness program led by Chaplain Daniel Friesen and Psychotherapist Dr. Grace Lian. I also recorded this video and have presented at some of the most recent workshops.

While research in this specific area continues to emerge, many women and men in Correctional Institutions suffered from significant trauma and PTSD (post-traumatic syndrome disorder). Again, while there are many reasons underlying why an individual commits a crime, the ‘early story’ of an offender is often horrific, including for some who were raised in communities of faith.

In brief, what Better Life is discovering is that, as we address an individual’s trauma through trauma-informed psychotherapy—specifically, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)—we begin to give men and women an opportunity to live life free from being highjacked by the extreme and often overwhelming events and emotions of the past.

This is just one “tool” among many needed for healing and successful reintegration, and we’re excited about adding it as an additional support for offenders in their journey. (With reference to our previously referenced reintegration pathway model, we currently offer this inside institutions prior to parole at the “on-ramp” stage.)

Of course, trauma, to various degrees, is something that impacts all of us. If you’d like to understand the impact of trauma on the brain, why we think what we think, feel what we feel, and do what we do, please watch this video presentation of the material that we recently presented to the men at Mission Medium Correctional Institution.

As always, we’re deeply grateful for your support. It is your financial and prayerful investment in Better Life that allows us to continue to have a life-changing and eternity-altering impact on the lives of many women and men.