Hi readers!
Mintern, here, reporting from basic training. Today was kind
of a bummer. We spent all day learning about mental health awareness and
learning trauma informed practices. A huge number of offenders in the prison
system suffer from mental health issues. It’s important to acknowledge these
issues and use fair, firm and consistent communication through an
individualized approach in order to take the mental health of the offender into
consideration during every single interaction.
We also talked about trauma informed practice. There is a
large population of offenders who have experienced trauma in their lives. This
means that the stressful prison environment is even more difficult. Anything
could be a trigger that might cause the offender to be re-victimized.
Although we discussed mental health awareness and trauma
informed practice for a full eight hours, we really only scratched the
surface. I got an overview of mental
health issues like borderline personality and schizophrenia, and I received information
about talking with rape survivors and victims of PTSD. But I barely feel
prepared to take on the responsibility of providing resources to such a diverse
population. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a more interdisciplinary approach
to my Master’s degree. It definitely would have paid off to have a class under
my belt like abnormal psychology or human behavior.
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