Episode Notes

Learn more!

• Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough
• Placements at Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough
• Elizabeth Fry Society Events
• Elizabeth Fry Society Facebook Page
• Elizabeth Fry Society Instagram
• Elizabeth Fry Society in the News!

Transcript

Beth: Welcome to the Social Profs Podcast with your hosts Beth Torrens and Kristy Buccieri. This is the podcast where we attempt to turn teaching inside out by engaging in conversations outside the classroom with faculty, community members, and Trent student alumni. Our goals with these conversations are to learn more about the benefits of a criminology or sociology degree and to talk about the ways that students can get more involved at Trent and in the community. We will also do a deep dive with some Trent professors to learn more about their approaches to teaching, what drives their research, and a few fun facts you can only learn when you turn teaching inside out.

Kristy: The Elizabeth Fry Society is a non-profit organization in Peterborough that provides gender responsive community supports for people who have been or are at risk of being criminalized while advocating for broader social change to prevent or provide alternatives to incarceration. On this episode of the Social Profs we sit down with their director of operations Annessa Stillman to talk about the day in the life of an EFry employee, the tremendous impact the organization has had in the community, and how students can get involved now and has a future career opportunity. Thank you so much for joining us today, Annessa. We really appreciate it.

Annessa: Thank you for having me. I’m quite excited to be here today.

Kristy: We’re wondering if you can tell us a bit about your organization.

Annessa: Absolutely. So, the Elizabeth Fry Society has been advocating for human rights and social transformation to prevent incarceration due to systemic inequities. We’ve been doing that since 1986 at RE Fry here in Peterborough. We grew from a grassroots movement which promoted alternatives to prisons. And then we’ve evolved into an established organization with a strong presence in the Peterborough community. That’s now known for providing compassionate community supports and amplifying the voices of people who have been or who are at risk of being criminalized. When I started EFI in 2019 we had about five staff. We’ve grown quite a bit since then. We’re up to, I think we have probably about 30 people here now, and that significant growth has been influenced by the increasing complexity and diversity of the needs of our service users and the many interconnected crises in our community that we’re facing, such as insufficient housing, poverty, substance use, and food insecurity. So, while growth is good, it’s always kind of double-edged when you’re in this line of work. You never want to be needed, so sometimes your growth is kind of a reflection of the needs of your community, higher needs out there means that you tend to grow in your, in your agency a little bit.

Beth: So it’s great that you’ve had such growth in the organization. And I’m imagining that there are probably a diverse number of roles for those approximately 30 employees. What might a typical day look like for an employee if you could give us maybe an example or two?

Annessa: Absolutely. So I thought what I would do is I’ll give you a little bit of each program of what that staff would do because we all operate so differently. So, in our justice programs, we have court and court case management as well as bail verification supervision. A typical day for a court staff would be providing advocacy or support to individuals that are involved in the criminal justice system. They may be providing information about the court processes and procedures, they may be assisting with navigating the court process, they may be providing counseling services, program services for those who are referred to us by the court to complete community programming with us. We also provide emotional support during court appearances. So, when it’s really tough for somebody to attend, especially if it’s their first time being there, our court workers do sit with them in court and help them through that process. For our BVSP or our bail verification supervision staff, they offer an alternative to incarceration for people who would otherwise be released but lack the financial or social supports to do so. So, they’re people who would already be eligible for bail but don’t have access to assurity. We work to prevent individuals from remaining in custody while their court matter progresses through the legal system. We provide, we provide bail, so we check in with them to make sure they’re staying where they’re supposed to be staying. We go over their bail conditions, and we remind them of the next court date, but we also provide service navigation, internal referrals, community referrals, and any other supports they may need as well. In community programs, we provide one-on-one support, supportive counseling, program delivery groups. We attend community events and presentations. That’s also the program where we oversee the majority of our student placements as well. So, most students that are coming into us through different post-secondary education paths and are in need of placement, they are usually supervising the community programs. It’s just it’s the easiest one to do that there’s so much freedom to explore, and that’s just kind of where our students tend to start. For our Wolf Street program, or our bridge program, which is the modular homes that we have here in Peterborough, for a typical day for our case managers here, they perform daily tasks, which is looking over the operation of the site, which is things like cleaning, tidying up, responding to crises, providing harm reduction supplies, supporting residents with their daily needs, whether it’s helping with laundry, um you know help accessing different services that we have here. They also support the occupancy agreement, so they have to report any violations of the occupancy agreements. They help the individuals here engage in their care plans and complete referrals. Um they help them get to court, they help them connect with bail, they help them attend you know doctor’s appointments, anything else that they might need to do as part of their care plans. Um that’s yeah that would be a typical day for the bridge staff. And the final program that I’ll have that I have on my list today is our drop-in program at Trinity. So, our drop-in staff are at Trinity from Monday to Friday from 10 to 1, and they provide service navigation, food, clothing, and harm reduction supplies to individuals who are experiencing homelessness.

Kristy: All I can say is, wow, you do so much in your organization. That’s amazing.

Annessa: Thank you. We do tend to touch on a few things. It’s definitely not one focus for us here. We do tend to touch on a little bit of everything. We kind of call ourselves gap fillers sometimes. If there’s a gap that can’t be filled by other agencies in town, sometimes we just take that on and we figure it out as we go.

Kristy: I think the work you do would be really interesting and really inspiring for students in particular and there are students listening. So, can you speak to us a bit about how your organization would be of interest to particularly students in criminology or sociology?

Annessa: Absolutely. So, we, first of all, we definitely specialize in placements since 2019. I have taken in and supervised over 200 placement students from various post-secondary schools, but a lot of Trent and Fleming students, those tend to be the ones that we kind of give a little bit of favor to. The work that we do here touches on so many different areas. So, if your interest is towards social work and providing that one-on-one support with people, you can do that in this environment and you can do it in any program. Whether it’s the court, the bail community programs at Wall Street, you still get to work with somebody and you can still apply those skills and learn those skills from the workers here. But if you’re interested in criminology, again, that touches on every program. The people that we are supporting have been criminalized or are very much at risk of being criminalized and providing an opportunity for students here that are interested in the criminology side is you get to see the justice system as a whole. So, you know we’re working with people from the moment they get charged right through until the ones who are coming out of being released from incarceration. So not only do you see the the systemic inequities that lead to people being criminalized such as homelessness, poverty, mental health and addiction, but you’re also seeing the barriers that are put up when somebody’s been charged or been incarcerated and are trying to come back into the community. So, you kind of get to see the justice system at all angles from a placement here, and everything that we do is very hands-on for students. So, while there’s some shadowing, which is a great part of learning, a lot of what you do here is the real work. We assign students to work with service users, some students will carry a small caseload under our supervision where they get to do the work themselves. We do a lot of, you know, they get to go right to court, they get to witness court, they get to go with staff there. If they’re down at the bridge program, they get to interact with residents down here and support them as well, attending case conferences. Really anything that you want to learn and do, we try to provide an opportunity to do so.

Beth: That’s fantastic. And I know you’ve already highlighted it a bit, but I’m just wondering, are there any other maybe key impacts or success stories that you can share about the work that EFI has done in the Peterborough or broader community?

Annessa: Sure, I’d be glad to. I did pull some stats before this chat today just so I could speak to a few things for you. So, I had some stats in 2023 for our bail program, so the BVSP program, we had 374 individuals released to that program, which means 374 people did not have to serve time before their court proceedings. We don’t want people to serve time before they’re found guilty. We want them to have the same access to bail as everyone else. So, 374 people were able to remain in the community until their trial started. We also have an 80% referral rate within that program to other programs within our agency. So, 80% of our bail clients are referred to other programs in our agency. For our court program, we have an 84% success rate for individuals to complete with us and have their sentences lessened. That’s a huge amount of people that come to that court program that are successful in having those charges lessened or dropped just by connecting with us and receiving our supports. In our community programs, as I mentioned, And we have over 200 we’ve had over 200 placement students since 2019 but we’ve also had 400 online enrollments in 2023 for online programs. So, all the programs that we deliver with people one on one, there’s an option to do them online which kind of removes a barrier for those who can’t access programs, you know, in your typical nine to five day or who have to worry about a job or childcare. So, we’ve had, yeah, over 400 in 2023 alone accessing those programs free of charge without the barriers. Our drop-in program at Trinity averages with about 45 people a day. And that program only runs for three hours a day. So 45 people accessing that services is wonderful. That’s a lot of people, you know, receiving food, clothing and harm reduction supplies. And the final one is our bridge program so being able to provide transitional housing to 50 people who have experienced chronic homelessness, which means that they’ve been they’ve experienced homelessness for more than six months consecutively. These are individuals who have had a hard time being successful on other housing programs have been able to maintain housing in our program with the approach that we provide which is very much client centered and very much supportive of them but they’ve been able to maintain housing for many of them. It’s been the whole time that we’ve been open down here, which is about six months now. So that’s a huge win for a number of individuals in the community.

Kristy:  It’s remarkable impact and really challenging work that you’re doing. I’m wondering if you could speak to us a bit about some of the struggles that your organization faces in doing this work.

Annessa: As a non-profit, I think the biggest one is always going to be funding for sure. It’s, you know, it’s never guaranteed. It’s never, it’s not always stable. You’re always having to search for new opportunities to fund the work that you do and to show, you know, large funders that what the work that you do is important. And we’ve been lucky that in the last few years, we’ve been able to secure some larger grants that have been able to help us develop some newer programs and to keep our core programs afloat. But that’s, it’s always one of the challenges in this nonprofit work is you never know what your next year might bring. It’s a lot of work, a lot of creativity ideas that have to be thrown around. I would definitely say that’s one of our top ones. Another challenge is definitely when you’re supporting people who are often marginalized or stigmatized, you’re constantly being watched by the community, constantly being judged by the community, not everybody values on the same things that your agency values. I think that can be hard and challenging too to you know to turn off the naysayers and to look at the positive work that you do. A lot of self-reflection there and just reminding ourselves that what we do is important. The people that we help are important and those people who don’t understand are lucky that they don’t understand. It probably means that it’s not touched their lives personally which always what you would hope for somebody but definitely that public scrutiny is definitely a big one sometimes.

Beth: So it sounds like there’s a lot of job opportunities that are available where students might be ready to face some of those challenges or thinking about facing some of those challenges and getting involved after graduation. If students are interested in working with an organization like EFry after finishing up their degree, what could they think about doing now while they’re in school to better prepare them for that job opportunity?

Annessa: Well, if I’m looking at ideal candidates that would come through our place, I always enjoy when somebody has experience beyond education in whatever capacity that is, even if it’s things such as part-time jobs, customer service, I like being able to see lived experience in that capacity as well, that it’s not just school that you’ve been able to whether it’s volunteer work, whether it’s researching what happens in your community, attending events, being knowledgeable about your community or just gaining any kind of real life experience is beneficial as well. I think that for us is a value many of our staff have lived experience. Last poll we did was 80% of us and that experience comes in many forms, whether it’s directly through mental health, addiction, substance use, poverty, or homelessness or some of our staff who’ve never done this field of work but are coming from trades backgrounds or customer service backgrounds, but they have a passion for the work as well. So, we do encourage students to have a little bit more of a well-rounded resume that’s not just education-based but show us some other things that make you unique.

Kristy: Really good advice. For students who are interested in getting involved now while they’re they go to get more information.

Annessa: Absolutely, because we take so many student placements, it’s really hard for us to also provide volunteer opportunities. I tend to give most of those to our student placements. Doesn’t mean I’m not open though, they’re welcome to give me an email. Usually if I have something that is brewing that I would like to do, I will reach out to volunteers for that so they can always send me an email. Let me know that they’re interested. Quite often and I’ll keep them kind of aside and when an opportunity pops up, I’ll reach out and, or even attending some of our events as well. So, we do have anti-stigma day, which is approaching for us on June 26th. I can probably forward it to you when we have a little bit more of our information ready for it, but attending those events that we do is also a great way to be involved. We’d be happy to have you hang out with us for the day, get to learn about what we do, meet with staff and students. That’s a great way you can volunteer as well.

Beth: Fantastic a lot of great information that I’m sure will be very valuable to our students if they are thinking about getting involved or if they’re just interested in learning a little bit more about Elizabeth Fry and the work that the organization does in the community. Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us today.

Annessa: Thank you so much for having me.

[Music]