Enhancing the Well Being of Vulnerable Populations from the Essentials of Happiness Conference

While at the conference, Murphy (2015) presented a presentation called “Enhancing the Well Being of Vulnerable Populations”. He works in a jail in Alleghany County where they received enough grants to start a re-entry center in the jail. This re-entry center allowed the parents and caregivers in jail extra visitation to spend time with their families, extra telephone calls, and extra support and resources overall. He talked about the barriers when working with families with an incarcerated loved one being transportation, communication, and finances. The outcomes of the re-entry center in Alleghany country were so good that what was originally grant funded is now part of the budget for the jail system.

He also talked about family focused approach, engaging families, and in-house services. Family focused approach aims to serve all family members needs both individually and collectively. They build on existing skills and talents, assist families with accessing support and resources that will help them with their needs and interests, and use assessment tools such as genograms to see how and where they are connected with their families. Engaging families involved engaging families early during the process and adjusting engagement such as face to face, through the glass, or writing letters based off the limitations the institutions have in place. Some in-house services provided included extra visitation, extra phone calls, and psychoeducation. Along with these things the re-entry center also offered community services and safety for both the family members and the inmates.

I think re-entry systems like this should be placed all over the United States. There are so many children who have parents in jail and may never get to see them again. I think this allows the child to remain its innocence and still be connected with the parent. I also think it allows the inmates to make this the most enlightening experience they can. They also talked about careers and how it is hard for someone with a record to get a decent job or how someone who made a lot of money selling drugs is not going to work at Wendy’s because it is not realistic. It made me realize that although we talk about career development and choosing one that interests us, not everyone has that opportunity. One small crime from immaturity can result in one not being able to choose their dream job. I think this program has many benefits for the whole family and is something other jails should offer.

Overall, the program had a significant impact on the children, the families, and the inmates. The children were less stressed and scored higher on measures of well-being, intelligence, and emotional and behavioral measures. The inmates had reduced disciplinary actions while incarcerated. Additionally, this allowed the inmates who were parents to act as parents although they were incarcerated. The overall message was finding happiness through work which is something we often think and talk about in career development.

Reference

Murphy, J. (2015, October 1). Enhancing the Well Being of Vulnerable Populations. Lecture presented at Civic and Community Engagement and Research Project (CCREP) International Policy Conference at Millersville University.