Current projects
About 600,000 people return to the community from prison each year, most of whom have histories of trauma and mental health challenges. There is a critical need for strength-based mental health support during the reentry period to promote skills for well-being and interrupt generational cycles of incarceration that disproportionately affect Black communities and other communities of color.
Skills training in mindfulness, compassion, and related practices can reduce mental health symptoms and provide some refuge in the midst of times of transition and upheaval. These practices also foster skills such as self-regulation, self-efficacy, and prosociality that are critical for successful reentry.
In collaboration with the Nehemiah Center, Just Mindfulness, and an advisory board of formerly incarcerated people, we are developing a trauma-sensitive mindfulness curriculum for the reentry period and evaluating its impact on mental health and well-being. The long-term goals of this research are to develop offerings that span the pre-release/post-release period, and to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness practices in promoting positive reentry outcomes (e.g., supportive relationships, social engagement, positive work and educational trajectories).
Funding for this work is provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (R34MH138711) and the Wisconsin Partnership Program (WPP 5129) through a grant to the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.
Peers with shared lived experiences play an essential role in promoting hope, healing, and flourishing after incarceration. We are leveraging the power of peer support in developing a “train-the-trainer” model that prepares formerly incarcerated community partners to bring mindfulness-based practices to their peers.
Participants develop experience leading these practices in the classroom, and are then invited to bring these practices into a variety of real-world settings where they are offering peer support. We also partner with participants to record meditation practices that can be widely disseminated at low cost. This approach provides a relationship-based way to scale well-being practices while increasing community capacity to heal from within.
Funding for this work is provided by a grant from the Dana Foundation.
For individuals who have experienced incarceration, the ability to flourish depends on healing from nearly universal experiences of trauma that fuel recurring, generational cycles of harm and system involvement. Paradoxically, the focus of the criminal legal system on punishment can exacerbate cycles of harm and trauma for those who commit crimes, while failing to meet the needs of victim-survivors and the broader community.
The process of restorative justice disrupts these destructive cycles by examining the root causes and ripple effects of harm, promoting healing and restoration through relational, victim-centered, community-based approaches. We are partnering with the Prison Ministry Project to evaluate an existing restorative justice offering for incarcerated individuals in the Wisconsin prison system, and to expand the impact and reach of this program.
We have also partnered with the Dane County Community Restorative Court and New Blue to investigate the impact of a pre-arrest restorative justice program that diverts young adults and those living with substance use and mental health challenges from the traditional criminal justice system.
Funding for this work is provided by a Community-University Partnership Award from UW–Madison.
Prison education is a powerful tool for upward mobility after incarceration, but nearly universal histories of trauma – and the resulting serious mental health challenges that affect about half of incarcerated people – can easily undermine educational success, employment opportunities, and community reintegration. What if we could leverage prison education to provide students not just with academic training, but with the skills needed to promote mental health and cultivate greater flourishing both behind and beyond bars?
We are partnering with the UW–Madison Prison Education Initiative to adapt an evidence-based college course, The Art and Science of Human Flourishing, for incarcerated college students. This course is a unique blend of didactic and experiential learning that invites students to explore for themselves what it means to flourish, regardless of lived histories or life circumstances. We seek to extend the existing evidence base for this course and develop a scalable model for promoting mental health during incarceration and after release.
Funding for this work is provided by internal funding from UW–Madison.
By and large, the police profession lacks effective and culturally resonant practices to promote resilience and offer healing from trauma. The result is elevated rates of psychological distress, burnout, fatigue, and suicide for police officers, and an increased risk of harm and violence for community members who interact with trauma-injured officers.
Training in mindfulness and related contemplative practices offers a strength-based approach that can be less stigmatizing than other forms of mental health help-seeking. We are interested in understanding the direct impact of this training on police officer mental health and wellbeing, and the indirect impact of these practices on the health and wellbeing of the broader community.
Our published research in this area has demonstrated the feasibility and acceptability of a police-specific mindfulness offering, and offered promising evidence for the impact of this training on improved sleep quality and reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
Funding for this work has been provided by the UW–Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, the National Institute of Justice, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, and the Mind and Life Institute.