Women helping women

Each day, you may hop on a bus, leaf through a paper, get to your destination and not think twice of all the decisions you've made to get there. But for many women in Canada's correctional institutions, a simple journey can seem like a tough challenge.

Judith Heminger, executive director of Saskatchewan's Elizabeth Fry Society, says that the majority of female convicts can't even imagine doing something as simple as getting on the bus. The thought of having to travel across the city on their own brings many of these women to tears, Heminger says.

“These (convicts) are women who've been away from the community for a very long time and, in an institution, they don't have an opportunity to make decisions for themselves,” Heminger says. “They're told what to do and where to go and, in this state, they aren't ready to be put in a position where they have to make choices and support themselves.”

Supplying the tools to reform
There are 24 chapters of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and each works to help female convicts reclaim their independence and get integrated into the community. Nationally, Elizabeth Fry Societies advocate for women inside correctional facilities and at government levels. The societies' main focus is to provide support, services and counselling that will keep women connected to their community while they are incarcerated - and to help get these women re-established in society once they're released.

“We provide inmates the steps, prior to entering into their community, that will help them enter the workforce and integrate into society,” Heminger says. “We give them the opportunity, through various programming, to deal with some of the issues that brought them into conflict in the first place.”

Skills lead to hope
Julia Price, research co-ordinator for the Barriers to Re-Integration program and previous prison liaison, says the role of the Fry society is crucial because on the federal level, women don't get enough programming and there's little done to help them attain job skills. Price said it's difficult to offer correctional programs to the small groups of women because there are far more men incarcerated. Hope exists for these women through community support and programming like that offered at The Healing Lodge in Maple Creek, Sask. In the past, the women's Healing Lodge (a federal correctional facility) worked on a program with the provincial technical school to provide inmates with training as commercial cooks.

Heminger says these types of programs are integral to the correctional and re-integration process because in order to remain out of prison, inmates must learn to be independent. This would be a difficult task without programs that develop the confidence and skills needed to succeed.

“The best thing that we can do is empower other women to help themselves,” she says. “Certainly these women have made bad choices but we all do in life, and if they've paid for their mistakes and they're ready to move on with it, they will need our help.”

Check out page 2, How to Lend a Hand, and find out how you can help women in correctional facilities across Canada.