(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal".

I'm Steve Kendall.

A year ago, we introduced you to a community effort in Hancock County to assist adults who are involved in the criminal justice system, return to and live productive lives.

During this edition of "Journal", we'll be joined by representatives of Welcome to a New Life and their community partners.

In this first segment, we wanna welcome Carla Benjamin from Welcome to a New Life and two of the board members, Puck Rowe and Stan Kujawa.

So, welcome all of you.

Thank you again for coming back and thank you for all you've been doing in the past year.

Carla, talk about where we've been in the past year, because I said, we had you guys on a year ago.

What's happened in that year's time?

How is welcome to a New Life evolved and developed?

- Right.

Well, first of all, Steve, thank you so much for the invite to be part of this show again.

I am excited to share that we've actually seen a lot of change in people's lives.

We are still continuing to make connections with other nonprofits, other areas in our community where we are able to help individuals that are truly wanting to change their life, making those connections, reduce some of those barriers that they come against when they are in this transition, right.

And so, we are one part of this puzzle of support with them as we are helping them.

And I will tell you that we've seen people that are going back to school, getting their high school diploma.

We've seen people graduate from this past May, we had someone graduate and get her high school diploma.

That was amazing.

And then, also, reunification of families.

And that's what we would like to see, the connection, people wanting to change their life, but also finding ways to engage in ways that are positive, finding ways for them to also give back and help others that were probably in the same situation as what they once were.

People are working in recovery fields and also trying to go to school for their CDCA, which is a certification in drugs.

And so, that to me, is amazing where you start seeing that change, that it's not just to cross off the marks and say, okay, I completed this and I'm doing this.

But it's actually the true change in their life and the ways that they are actually becoming productive citizens in our community.

It's pretty amazing.

- Yeah.

- And I know, Puck, when we talked last year, that was the goal was to get people basically back, integrated into life again.

Because as we know, criminal justice system has dealt with people in a lot of different ways.

Not all of them productive sometimes.

And this was an effort, as I think, Carla said, to get people back into the system in a way to ease them back in, in a way that allowed them to be successful, so they could change their lives.

And as I think, you said, mentioned, getting involved with their families more, bringing all of those pieces back together, what we would see as a way that life should be versus maybe lives that we all live that aren't necessarily as productive as we'd like them to be.

So, talk a little about that, about how you feel about the program after a year.

- Well, I need to go back to April, 2018 when Stan met me and we had an idea, because he was experienced in the jail.

We had too many people becoming addicted to drugs.

- Right.

- And the drugs are getting worse and more dangerous and what have you.

And we found out as we got involved with this program and met with those people and talked with the community, over 200 people in the community, those people in our community wanted to support and see if we could address this addiction problem.

So, what happened is, as we get in there, we found out these people did not have any hope.

So, we brought outstanding mentors on board, brought an executive director on board, and now as we move forward in this program, we can see the success and the impact it's having on lives in a positive way.

- Yeah, and I think, one of the things I know when we were talking a year ago, it didn't just involve the people that we have here today, but you had people from law enforcement involved, because they needed to be on board and they were on board to help with this because they saw that it would help their systems as well to have people not coming back again.

And, Stan, what are your feelings about how things have gone in the last year or so?

- I think, they've gone tremendously well.

And also like to give credit to the 40 some agencies that we have in our talent that we collaborate with to make this organization go to help these individuals.

But it's been very well.

Carla has done a tremendous job as the executive director.

We went ahead and hired a part-time person to give her some leeway there to... And also, now, we're in a process of hiring another full-time employee.

So, we're growing, but the support from the community has just been fantastic.

Both the county and the city is... whether from the mayors and the county commissioners all the way to the court system with the judges, everybody's been backing us and we're there to help these individuals.

We got some special guests that we wanna share with you today.

And that might open some eyes too as well.

- Right.

And I think, go ahead.

Go ahead, Carla.

I'm sorry.

- No.

- I was gonna say, because one of the things that we saw that when we talked about this a year ago was that there were benefits for everybody at every level, whether it was the community, the individual, the agencies, all of them saw value in this, because it would make their work easier, better.

And talk about the fact that people wouldn't be coming back into the system, because they would be able to find success after leaving the criminal justice portion of this.

And I think, that's why the law enforcement people were involved as well, because they saw that they obviously have to manage their part of it, but at the same time, they see a lot of issues in terms of recidivism, that sort of thing.

And in fact, I think, you mentioned, Stan, the vast number of agencies and community partners that you have spoke to the issue that needed to be addressed.

As you've evolved through this, has there been anything that has changed or surprised you in a good way or a bad way about what's happened in the last year?

Things that you thought about, well, we're gonna go this direction.

It turned out, oh, we found out it was better to go this way with it.

Is there anything like that that's happened?

- I might offer one comment, - Sure.

- and I'm sure Carla have a comment, but in the beginning, a couple of things is that no one in Findlay or Hancock County, as most people in businesses throughout the country would not hire felons.

- [Steve] Sure.

- With the shortage of employees, we've had many companies step up now hiring felons and these felons are doing these places a good job.

- Ah.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

And again, that gives them a path to success.

A part of that is that, and that's, I think, the one of the benefits you talked about.

As this has evolved, have you had more people come on board?

because obviously, you had a core group of partners to begin with.

You mentioned 40 some.

Obviously, the success has led to more involvement from other agencies, other groups?

- So, one of the best things that I will say that's been a benefit for Welcome to a New Life has been the collaboration and the partnership and just the acknowledgement of what the purpose and the mission of Welcome to Your Life is with the criminal justice system.

Being able to have those conversations with the adult probation office, not only with the common pleas court, but also municipal.

They understand the people that we're working with.

And so, those referrals that we're getting through the jail-based counselors.

We're getting referrals through those treatment facilities.

We're also getting the referrals from the probation, public defenders, other nonprofits, that they're understanding now really what our true mission is.

And so, being able to actually work with them and have that core understanding that we are one part of that puzzle, we are one piece, right, to help these individuals as they're making this transition into life.

Because what our mentorship program is, is about accountability.

It's about support.

It's about helping these individuals that really, truly wanna change their life.

Is this program for everyone?

It's not.

But for the ones that do, we want to be that added support.

And so, what's amazing is that the probation officers and those people that are doing those referrals, they understand the clientele, people that we're looking for, which is amazing, because they're giving us those individuals that have gotten to a point in their life where enough is enough and they wanna change.

And we just want to help them and give 'em that hope and that chance for a new life.

So, it's amazing.

- Yeah, because I know when we come back in the other segments, we're gonna meet some of your partners and also a mentee and mentors who have been been involved in this.

So, we'll be back in just a moment.

More about Welcome to a New Life here on "The Journal" on WBGU-PBS.

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal".

We're talking to representatives and participants in Welcome to a New Life, a community-based organization that involves a lot of community partners in Hancock County.

And we're joined this time by Carla Benjamin, executive director of Welcome to New Life, and one of the mentors, Clyde Reasner, and a mentee, Kevin De La Rosa.

Carla, talk about the mentor-mentee connection process.

And then, we'll talk to both of you, guys, about your involvement in that process.

- Absolutely.

So, what the mentors, the mentors are volunteers.

They're volunteer mentors that truly care about people and wanna help people on the journey of their new life.

And so, when we are meeting with them, we train them, we go over just different ways in order for them to make that connection.

But the full purpose of this mentorship is so that that way, they could just be there and be someone's friend.

Lots of times, they're filling in that gap of a family member.

And so, they're giving that individual hope, they're giving that individual strength to keep on doing what they're doing.

That like, "Come on, you got this.

I'm here for ya."

But then, at the same time, it's that, like I mentioned before, accountability.

They're given that accountability of like, "Hey, how'd it go with your probation today?

How'd it go with your meetings?"

So on and so forth.

But these mentors, I will tell you, they truly care.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's all about really understanding that people have made mistakes in their life.

They may not have walked that journey, don't understand how that, anything about that.

But they just truly care and wanna show someone, and treat them with respect and humanity.

And so, that's what's amazing about our program is that the mentorships.

The mentors that are engaged are the ones that just want to help support.

And so, I am excited that today, we have one of our mentors here as well as one of the people in our program, our friend, Kevin, who is willing to share that, share his experience with you today.

- And Clyde, when you either, I'm not sure how you got into the program, were you approached, did you volunteer?

But when you were first came upon this and said, hey, would you like to do this?

What was your thoughts at first?

Did you jump into this a hundred percent or were like, well let's think about this, or how did you become a mentor and how did that evolve as as you went through the process?

- Well, I first got involved in prison ministry with the Bill Glass Crusade, where we went into prisons and we met with the prisoners and talked to them about Christ and trying to mentor them from that standpoint.

With Welcome to New Life, this was a more of a local situation where I could get involved.

And one of my friends, Jim... What was his last name?

(Clyde laughs) - [Carla] Woodward?

- Woodward.

Sorry.

(Carla laughing) Sorry, Jim.

He talked about this.

I've gone into the jail in Findlay and I actually helped out with serving meals in there.

And when this came up, he told me about it, and I said, yeah, that's something I think, I might wanna do.

And so, that's how I got involved.

- Yeah.

Now, Kevin, obviously, you're involved in the program.

tell us your story about how, where you were and where you are now, and how this has worked for you.

I know and we're... Yeah, feel free, go right ahead.

- Well, what made me become a member of this program, I was sitting in jail.

- Mm-hmm.

- I was sitting in a small cell.

I overheard a conversation about this program.

So, then, I just reached out.

I did my part.

I got released, got involved with this program.

This program has been behind me through a lot of storms.

- [Steve] Mm-hmm.

- We just overcame my last storm and it has helped me so much grow.

I'm not perfect.

I'm not a golden child, but I learned how to deal with life now instead of using an alternative to drink or to use a different kind of drug to substitute that pain for what I was going through.

I didn't gain a program, I gained another family.

- Ah, okay.

- Like I said, these people have helped me so much.

And all I could do is just continue doing what I'm doing for me.

I'm not doing it for them.

- Now, how long had you been in your previous situation before you became aware of the program and got involved?

Had you been in jail for a certain amount of time?

Or how... Yeah.

- I was sitting in jail for 120 days for two DUIs that I caught.

- Okay.

- That's when I found this program.

And then, I got into another situation while I was involved with the program, I had to go to prison for a little bit.

They stood with me through everything.

They gave me hope, 'cause I lost all hope and I had to turn myself in.

- Right.

- I knew it was like I'm never gonna get out.

- Right.

- But I got out on an OR bond with house arrest.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Now, so since you've been in the program, what have you been doing with the program now that you're involved in it and you're outside of the criminal justice system in terms of being incarcerated?

- What I've been doing is just doing my daily routine.

- Okay.

- Being a- - [Steve] And what would that be?

- Going to work, coming home, doing some schoolwork online, meeting with my mentors once a week.

I see probation twice a week.

Just doing everything the productive citizen way if I wanna say it that way.

- Yeah.

Yeah, and were you concerned a little bit at first about when you went, obviously someone hired you, you were employed.

Was there any concern about what that was going to be like or how you were gonna be able to adjust to that?

And obviously, your mentor probably helped you with that and then your employer too, obviously, by hiring you.

But what were you... Did you have concerns like, am I gonna be able to make this work?

How is this gonna work?

Any concerns like that?

- With me, with employment, I never had a bad tote on employment.

- Ah.

- I'm always eligible to find a job like the trades that I've learned.

And it's just, I have that motivation and hunger to want a job, to know how to get it, to not just sit and just let something discourage me from accomplishing something.

- Yeah.

Now, you mentioned, have there been, for instance, bumps along the way, when you talk to your mentor.

How do you approach that with him?

Say, hey, look, I need to talk to you about this day.

How does that work, that relationship that you have?

- Oh, I send him a text.

You're available?

Yes.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I just dropped the bomb on 'em.

- Oh.

(group laughing) Okay.

- They either will meet if they're not busy or we'll just have a conversation over the phone.

And if they're not available, if they're busy, I call Carla.

- Ah, okay.

- Carla's my go-to person.

- Yeah.

Well, and I guess, that's the important thing too, that you hear is that you know that there's somebody you can talk to about in a situation like, hey, I need to talk this over with somebody.

I'm feeling a little bumpy today, a little thing I got a question about something.

And I guess, that's the value of the program, that they know, you know that there's somebody there you're gonna be able to find to talk you through this, help you with that.

And that's what we all need in any situation, somebody we can go and talk to.

And in this case, it really is an important situation.

If you were gonna tell somebody else who had been in your situation about this, what would you tell 'em?

What's the benefit of this?

What's the good thing about it you see that if I said, hey, you're in this program, tell me why should I get involved in it?

Why should I follow your lead on this?

- The only thing I would say, man, if you want it, - Mm-hmm.

- they're here to help you.

A lot of people feel discouraged, because they think somebody's gonna look at 'em the wrong way because they're an addict or because they have a criminal past.

It's a past for a reason.

- Right.

- It's on what you choose to build in the future determines who you are.

- Yeah.

- Don't let your past discourage from doing anything.

- Yeah.

- because if you do, you're gonna find yourself in the same spot.

- Yeah.

You're not gonna go anywhere.

Yeah.

And that's really good, because I think, that's a really good way to put it, because you're saying, look, I'm moving forward now.

I'm not th...

The past is a past and I've got this support and I'm taking advantage of and making it work, and every day's a progress.

Ah, wow.

That's really good.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and you guys for doing this.

And as we've always said, obviously, the more these groups get together, the better this situation works, so we'll have you guys back again sometime.

And you can tell us a year from now how you're doing too.

Appreciate you coming on - Yes, sir.

- and doing this because it's a yeah, it's a success story and we appreciate that so much.

Congratulations.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

Yeah.

We'll be back in just a moment.

More about Welcome to a New Life here on "The Journal".

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal".

We're talking to representatives of the community organization that brings in a large number of agencies and other organizations in Hancock County called Welcome to a New Life.

Were joined in this segment by Carla, excuse me, Kimberly Switzer, who is of course a director of court services and chief probation officer and adult probation department in Hancock County.

And also Pastor Dan Metzger of St. Marks Church, one of the mentors.

Kimberly, talk about your participation in the program because obviously, you were here a year ago and we talked about this, and it involved not just the courts, but law enforcement, of course, all the other groups we've talked about.

So, talk about how the past year has gone now that you've had a year of this in the program and the role of the probation department in this as well.

- Yes.

It's gone really well.

I must say that they came to me before the program started to launch their idea and ask what the court system thought of it.

And our first reaction was, this is what we've been missing for decades.

That the community wasn't bought in.

The community didn't support these folks that were trying to make a new life.

So, we knew it was needed.

We knew it was a spoke in the wheel that was missing.

And the last year, we've just seen it grow.

We've seen their mentors get savvy to understand all the multiple issues folks deal with.

They're understanding the court system better, which helps as well, so they can walk the defendants through the court system.

And the courts are now looking to them for their opinion, their feedback, their recommendations.

So, we're really relying on them.

We have almost 800 people on adult felony probation in Hancock County.

So, to whittle that down and decide who gets referred to this program, as you can imagine, is quite a feat.

- Sure.

- But it's really nice knowing that we have this resource for those who really want the help.

- Yeah.

And I know we were talking in the last segment, the people that become involved in the program from your perspective, really have to want to be involved in it.

What are some of the ways when you see somebody come through your part of the system, are there certain things you ask them or how do you go about the criteria you use to say, this person looks like they might be a good candidate.

So, when you talk to the other people in this organization, here's somebody who might be a candidate.

How do you go about sorting through that?

- I must say, Kevin, Mr. De La Rosa and I just talked about it before this segment, that there are lots of things that help us discern why somebody, how somebody might be a success in the program.

But it really comes down to their want, their will, their need to change, and that they might need that step up, that helping hand.

So, when a defendant starts talking the real deal and starts really working hard and starts voicing the things that our trained staff know to look for, then we make that referral to Carla and they take it from there.

So, I think, the other thing that's important for the community to realize is there a lot more people on this community supervision, various programs, different status in all communities in Ohio, because the state legislature has decided that certain levels of felonies are staying home.

They're not going to prison, they can't go to prison.

- [Steve] Aha.

- [Steve]} So- - So, the court system can't send them if they want.

So, these folks are home, they're in your communities.

[Steve] They're here and this is where they're going to be.

So... [Kimberly] That's right.

- there needs to be a way then to yeah, get them back into the system a way that's productive for everybody and efficient for everybody.

Pastor Dan, you're one of the mentors.

Talk about how you got involved and how you've been involved in the past year or so.

- Sure.

So, Carla actually found me when she was out talking with one of her neighbors that happened to be a friend of mine, - Mm-hmm.

- and said, hey, I have some people at the jail that might need a visit from a pastor at some point in time.

One of the great things about Welcome to a New Life, it's not a religious organization, - Right.

- but they do recognize that everyone has a different path to recovery and they really look at the whole person.

And so, I started off going and doing some visits at the jail for people that were a part of the program or just entering the program, and just giving them that little bit of a faith boost that they would sometimes need.

And then, through all of that, I ended up becoming a mentor and really found myself engaged in wanting to help people who were coming back, who are reentering into society, find some of those other parts.

Recovery is all about relationships and that's a part of my business is relationships.

- Sure.

- And so, inviting people to come and be a part of our community.

And I've found that it's been really impactful for our congregation and our community as a whole to see people that oftentimes we'd like to pretend maybe don't exist in our community.

- Okay.

- And form those relationships with them, real relationships that help people feel valued and know that they are seen and that they are cared about.

And it's been really exciting for me to see the changes from people who have been in the program and people in the community as they're responding to people in the program.

- Well, and you make a really good point.

It's a theme that runs through a lot of the programs that we do when we do shows like this, that if we all just became more aware of each other and who we are, and you make a perfectly point that as you said, well these are people that some people would go, I just don't wanna know that they're even out there.

I don't wanna deal with them.

I don't wanna think they're out there.

And yet, when they start to meet them and see they're just people.

- Yeah.

- I think, that's a really important part of this that people get to see, look, they're not that much different than you or I. Yeah, they've had a different set of experiences maybe than you or I have had, but the reality is they're still people and they still wanna do...

They wanna be productive.

They wanna be part of the community.

And that's a really good point that the more you are exposed to other people and their experiences, the more you can empathize and understand and therefore - Right.

- make them part of the community, make them feel like part of the community too.

As you've rolled through the system, Kimberly, with people, are there...

I don't wanna talk about success rates, but obviously, there are gonna be some people that do better than others.

When you talk with all of the people you work with, how do they go about, how do they understand the program and do they understand how you wanna get people into it?

Is there a process you use with them in terms of educating everybody else in your area as well?

- Sure.

I think, what's great about the program too is that it can start in the jail where these contacts are made - Mm-hmm.

- just like Pastor Dan, but the referrals are coming from every part of the criminal justice system.

- Ah, okay.

- So, once they're in court, maybe they're back in jail, maybe they're coming home from prison.

So, they're very open to taking referrals whenever.

The other thing I think, it's important to note, everybody's very aware of the drug problem.

It went from opiates to methamphetamine, and now we've got fentanyl on the streets.

And it's more important than ever to give people that leg up, give people that helping hand, introduce them, wrap 'em around resources as soon as possible, because we're losing people every week.

- Sure.

- This is no longer - Mm-hmm.

- just an epidemic.

It's killing people weekly.

- Yeah.

- So, this program has really helped to step in and prolong their lives.

So, in terms of success in our world, we look at progress, not perfection, - Sure.

- which is really important to note in the recovery world.

I think, a lot of the public expects perfection, and that's just not human nature.

[Steve] That's not, yeah, that's not the real world.

- It's not us either.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So, how many times have you quit a diet or quit smoking?

- Yeah.

- So, progress not perfection - Yeah.

- is what we've all learned to grow into.

And I think, the program has grown into that as well and realized we'll support them no matter what their next challenge is.

- Great.

Yeah, that's a very good point.

I think, that's... We have to understand that yeah, we're making progress.

We're not gonna cure this in a day, - Okay.

- We're not gonna cure it in a year, just like every other thing that we deal with.

- That's right.

- That's very good.

Well, I thank you both for coming on, and thank you for all that you do in this, and obviously look forward to having you back on to talk about how this has gone in another year or so.

And much success.

- Yes.

- And again, appreciate all the work you do in this.

You can check us out at wbgu.org and you can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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