Corrections_Today_July_August_2021_Vol.83_No.4

nEWS&vIEWS

Correctional Chaplain Perspectives

The value of visits and volunteers By Kristi Miller Anderson, Ph.D.

Introduction B efore landing in the prison reform non-profit world, I worked in various roles in prison facilities, beginning in a chaplaincy role and transitioning to administration. I have great empathy for all those who have worked in the prison setting through the COVID-19

crisis. Those in leadership have worked tirelessly to keep employees and inmates safe and encouraged. Those in security have added “virus containment” to the understanding of safety. Those in programming and treatment have adjusted the deliv- ery of their services amid limited movement and frequent quarantines. Those in chaplaincy have scrambled

to ‘reinvent’ correctional ministry amid the loss of a volunteer force, constraints on gathering and move- ment, and increased fear and tension among the inmate population. In the midst of their own struggles in navi- gating the COVID-19 world, heroic measures were demanded of the corrections workforce, to which they rose and demonstrated them- selves to be creative and resilient public safety officers. 4 th Purpose Foundation — Visitation 2.0 We at 4 th Purpose Foundation have the mission to make prison a place of transformation, but the lim- ited, or complete lack of, access to facilities for the last year has caused us to think differently about how to carry out our work. In response, we immediately created a “digital visit” that we hoped would fill in the gap in a creative way during the loss of all family visitation and volunteer activity. The project, aptly called “Visitation 2.0,” was well received and made its way into over 1,200 facilities across this country and into Canada. (To learn more about this

Photo courtesy Kristi Miller/4 th Purpose Foundation

8 — July/August 2021 Corrections Today