Abstract:

This paper investigates the value of alternative educational opportunities. We are researching the next steps to innovate education for prisoners. There is a large barrier to learning when it comes to education for inmates. This is due to a limited access to technology, lack of funding, the prison’s structured day, and a lack of public awareness. The research indicates that incarcerated individuals benefit from educational opportunities as exemplified by their significantly lower recidivism rates. Experiencing the value of diverse and inclusive education can facilitate a greater sense of self-esteem as well as successful re-entry into the community. Our goal is to help enlighten prisoners’ minds through education.

Students, faculty, and administration at Widener University are currently implementing a psycho-educational curriculum on trauma, PTSD, post-traumatic growth, soul-wounds, and the recent research on moral injury. Moral injury is defined as the injury on one’s conscience when they have been involved in an event that goes against their moral code. Many incarcerated individuals often struggle with historical and current traumatic life experiences. This course is focused on an educational approach to helping currently incarcerated individuals overcome these challenges.

We are now working on developing a curriculum throughout the 2019 summer that will be implemented Fall of 2019. This curriculum is being created by a team of currently incarcerated inmates, Widener students, and two Widener professors. We are innovating the educational pedagogy in order to help those incarcerated understand and cope with the trauma they have been through and learn how to grow from it through post-traumatic growth.

The curriculum will be laid out throughout a 10-week, 20-hour course, with different, yet interconnected, topics each week. Some topics include forgiveness, restorative justice, trauma exploration, and post-traumatic growth. The goal of this curriculum is to overcome the barrier that incarceration plays in education. There is a need for more trauma education in the prison, and this curriculum will fill that need.

After the first curriculum is ran in the Fall of 2019, the program will be evaluated and re-implemented Spring of 2020. The goal is to create a curriculum that can be used not just in one prison, but across the country, and possibly the world, to fill the need for trauma-based education in the prison.

Keywords:

Pedagogy, Psychology, Prison, Innovation, PTSD, Trauma, Moral Injury, Soul Wounds, Psycho-educational, Curriculum, Post-traumatic Growth, Overcoming Barriers.