April is Re-Entry Month, a month dedicated to building awareness regarding the many barriers and roadblocks affecting the 5,000 justice impacted adults returning to society each year in Cuyahoga County. To bring Re-Entry month to life, one of the programs held was a 2 hour “re-entry simulation” offered by Towards Employment and the Cuyahoga County Office of Re-Entry.
For those who haven’t attended this type of simulation before (such as the well-known poverty simulation), the goal is to put each individual in the shoes of a person (mine was named “Bethany”) with a background brief, and let the participant simulate the experiences of, in this case, re-entering the community after incarceration.
This simulation, which took 2 hours, represented the first month a person experiences upon re-entry. “Bethany” had served a 10 year sentence in Federal prison, experienced a drug addiction and was living in a halfway house, and needed to secure employment but had only a social security card to start. My job, as “Bethany”, was to go through all the activities required of her – get all her required Federal IDs, attend weekly check-ins in with her probation officer and mandatory AA/NA meetings, attend mandatory drug counselling, manage a meager amount of money while purchasing food and other necessities, try to secure a job, and deal with the unexpected situations which arise in life — to stay out of prison and start her new life. I was given a list of these activities which needed to occur each week and went to each “office” (table in the room) to accomplish each activities. Each week was simulated in 15 minutes.
Here are my takeaways:
1) It felt impossible. It didn’t take long to realize the number of required check-ins and activities was way more I was able to achieve. Between long lines at the various “offices” and the vast number of things I was required to do each “week”, I just wasn’t able to accomplish everything. In the simulation, I gave up on purchasing food – clearly, only in a simulatation. In real life, if someone isn’t able to attend a probation officer meeting, or get a bus ride to an AA/NA meeting, the person could be headed back to incarceration.
2) Kindness was appreciated, even needed. This was a simulation, but the stress and anxiety I felt in this simulation meant that the friendly faces and the kind tones of the people acting as the “agency workers” were needed. In fact, I had no idea how much a kind tone or a smile would be welcome.
3) Coaching and support are needed. In general, we often discuss how important job coaching and career navigation are, and while this wasn’t an experience focused exclusively on those activities, the need I had for someone to help me was immediately clear and absolutely required. At one point in the simulation, someone approached me to offer me $100 or a “wild card”, a card reflecting good or bad outcomes you had to address immediately. I took the $100, and then was thrown in jail for participating in an illegal scheme. It struck me so clearly how important it would have been for me – in a simulation – to have someone (family member, job coach, friend, trusted mentor) who could have said to me, “Cathy, that’s baloney”. Without that, the rules of the game are unclear and it’s so easy to make a terrible mistake.
4) The dichotomy between the requirements and the creative thinking needed. I was almost overwhelmed with all the weekly requirements I needed to meet to stay out of incarceration (e.g attending meetings, checking in with Probation, etc.) Instantly, I was focused on compliance and following rules, and the fear and discomfort with all that you can’t control in that environment made the focus on compliance even more strong. Yet, at the same time, several people guiding the process or acting as agency representatives would remind us: “Advocate for yourself. Ask questions. Ask for what you need. Try to figure out deals you can make that aren’t presented to you.” I’m sure that’s all true…but for me, it wasn’t realistic at all. When you are being told to paint by color within the lines or face extreme downside, expecting people to think other ways feels, frankly, ridiculous. This is an important perspective for those working with this population.
5) “Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Fearful. Eye-Opening.” These were some of the words shared by the participants after the simulation was done, all of which captured how I felt too. And thus, how some of the participants in the workforce system feel – IRL.
There’s no way these simulations are as a difficult as real life, but they are a good reminder for those of us who are lucky enough to live differently. If you have the chance to participate, I know you’d add other takeaways to this list.