By Bette Buschow, Resolana founder and executive director
Resolana has good news to share! You may already have heard the buzz from the Volunteer Appreciation Event, but we wanted to be sure those who weren’t at that lively gathering have also heard the news.
Dallas County Jail has asked Resolana to establish a dedicated Resolana pod!
What’s a dedicated pod? you may ask. Basically, all Resolana participants will be housed together in one of the pods that adjoins our classroom. This is exciting because having all our participants right next door will help solve logistical problems in calling the women, increase our scheduling flexibility and help stabilize attendance.
We’ll still have most classes in our classroom, where we are still limited to 20 class participants by jail policy, but in some instances we’ll be able to do activities in the pod itself. And in the long term, having a dedicated pod will allow us to gradually develop the type of social learning environment that evidence-based practice indicates is most effective for women: a modified therapeutic community model.
Right now we’re asking all team leaders and lead facilitators and all interested volunteers to save this date: on Sunday 4/10 afternoon at 2PM we will have a “training and orientation” to inform each of YOU about the changes and plans in store for Resolana and the women we serve.
Our program staff has been deep in planning mode in response to this game-changing request. The immediate challenge is that this move brings an expectation from the jail (and the women) that all 64 women in the pod will eventually be involved in classes. And Resolana will take increasing responsibility for rosters, the schedule and the environment in “our” pod.
We’re meeting with the officers assigned to our pod, talking with our current roster of ladies about the move and planning recruitment visits to other pods during the week of March 15. Our first batch of ladies will be moved into the pod on March 21— for awhile after that our schedule will continue without change. But there’s definitely more exciting changes ahead of us.
I’ll be sending out updates regularly. So watch for more information soon. And mark your calendars now for our April 10th meeting (location TBA)! I hope to see you there!
November 25, 2011 at 7:17 pm |
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