October 29, 2025 • 45 mins
What if a prison operated like a bridge back to community rather than a dead end? We sit down with Director Annette Chambers-Smith of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to explore how values, data, and everyday relationships are reshaping safety, reentry, and long-term well-being.
We start with the bigger picture: 98% of people come home. That reality shifts the mission toward healing, education, and practical preparation. Director Chambers-Smith shares four core values—and shows how correction officers, teachers, volunteers, and families become the frontline of change.
Then we go deep on mental health. With high rates of behavioral health and substance use needs among those incarcerated—and elevated PTSD and suicide risk among staff—the department is investing in employee support teams, nonprofit partnerships, and stigma-busting tools. The director also leads a national push beyond recidivism, tracking 16 determinants of post-release success.
We close this conversation with candid lessons from the director's own reset: sleep hygiene, protected time, and professional help that turned burnout into sustainable leadership. It’s a grounded, hopeful look at rehabilitation powered by data, partnerships, and human connection.
If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help more listeners find these stories.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Welcome to our October episode of Voices for
Suicide Prevention.
As we like to say, ourconversations are real talk,
real honest, real life.
I'm Stephanie Booker.
SPEAKER_01 (00:16):
And I'm Scott Light.
We have a visionary leaderjoining us today, and not just
leading our state, but leadingnationally in various roles, and
by showing the nation how Ohiodoes it, how we benchmark, how
we establish best practices forall.
Our guest is the director ofODRC, the Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction,Annette Chambers Smith.
(00:38):
Director, welcome.
Thank you.
It's good to have you here.
As our listeners will find out,and with several other national
titles as well, Stephanie and Iwere wondering when you sleep,
but we'll get to that as we gohere.
Again, we're very fortunate thatyou, your team, are leading the
way in several ways.
Before we get to all that, couldwe ask uh maybe a little bit
(00:58):
more about your personal story,your 30 years of correctional
experience, and what brought youto this work?
SPEAKER_03 (01:04):
That's kind of interesting.
Um, my mother was a prisonnurse.
So she worked at three differentinstitutions, and I can remember
taking her to drop her off atwork and stuff like that.
And I had said my whole life,there is no way I'm ever working
in a prison.
And then uh I was in college andI met the administrative
(01:28):
assistant to a warden, and hewas trying to hire somebody to
work in the records office.
Um, that's like computing timeand fast and speedy trial
paperwork and stuff like that.
And he's like, you should apply.
And I was like, No, I don't wantto work in a prison, but he kept
after me.
So I thought, well, you know,I'll go in and look around.
So I did apply.
There were 200 people thatapplied for the job.
(01:50):
This is back when the brass ringthat you could get would be like
being a civil servant was thebest, it was the awesome job
everyone wanted.
So I thought, well, there's noway I'll ever get this job, but
I wanted to see where he worked.
Well, as it turns out, I wastheir selected candidate, and
they had me go talk to thewarden up for my second
interview.
And he said, I don't want tohire you because you're
overqualified.
(02:11):
And I said, Yeah, I'll give youa year.
And he said, Okay, on that note,I'll hire you.
Well, I mean, that was in 1993,and I'm still in the industry.
When I became director, it waskind of funny for me to go home
and say, Hey, mom, you know, Itold you I was never gonna work
at prisons.
Now I'm actually the director.
So kind of full story.
SPEAKER_01 (02:30):
What'd she say to that?
SPEAKER_03 (02:31):
She's proud.
Of course she is.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great.
Very much.
SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
That one year turned into a few more years than that.
Um, going from that records jobto a deputy director.
Um, and then you stepped back alittle bit.
You went into the private sectorfor a couple of years before you
came back.
Why, why, why, why did you comeback?
What what changed in those yearsthat you were away that you
wanted to come back as director?
SPEAKER_03 (02:57):
Well, really, I had no desire to come back.
I was living in Florida andenjoying my job in private
industry, but Governor DeWinewon the election and his
transition team started callingme.
And I thought they were callingme to ask me advice, like who
should they try to hire?
So I was like, Well, thisperson's really good and this
person's got skills and don'tsleep on this person, you know,
(03:18):
kind of thing.
And then finally, one of themsaid, Yeah, we're not calling
you for your advice.
We're calling you because wewant you to be the director.
And I was like, Oh, I laughed atthem.
I never thought about it.
So after a while, I didn't sayanything back to him either.
And after a while, one of them,we were on a board together.
He said, You're gonna need to,you know, say yes or no.
(03:42):
And I'm like, Well, I'mconflicted.
And he said, Well, you betterget unconflicted because we got
to move on.
So I realized that I've beenmaking like pros and cons lists,
and just being real, there aremore cons than pros.
But I decided to pray about itbecause that's what I do
usually, and I I hadn't been,and God said, You already know
(04:03):
what to do.
He talks to me kind of like thatif I haven't been listening fast
enough.
And quite frankly, I did.
Like I had a fully formed visionof what things could be and um
how I could help that.
And I think I'm just walking inmy purpose that God gave me.
And I saw that after my prayers,and I said yes, and then I got
(04:26):
interviewed by Governor DeWine,and I love him.
And I think I was even moreconvinced that this is the right
thing to do after having met himand gotten to talk to him about
what he wanted to do in thestate of Ohio.
Uh, so my husband actually hadto pack us up because we didn't
have that much time before theadministration was gonna start.
(04:46):
So here my poor husband istrying to pack everything, and I
have already moved to Ohio.
And he actually packed a trashcan.
And I said to him, Why did youpack a full trash can?
He goes, Well, I mean, I didn'twant to mess anything up or get
in trouble.
So I just thought I'll packevery single thing in here.
And he truly did.
So he was a trooper.
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
So everything came to Ohio, including a little bit
of Florida trash.
SPEAKER_00 (05:11):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (05:11):
I I also have to think uh here's where my mind
goes.
I think of Florida weatherversus Ohio weather from let's
say December through April.
That was a con.
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (05:23):
How did you rectify that one?
Well, I honestly I do like theseason changes.
Okay.
But I really prefer the Floridaweather.
I I could take a walk at thebeach before I went to work.
It was just great.
And I was living where I used tovacation.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02 (05:39):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (05:40):
But back here, they were all my friends.
And there's nothing like gettingyour sweaters and boots out, and
you know, that changes of theseason.
Just when you get sick of anyone season Ohio, the next one
comes.
Right, right.
So I've always enjoyed that.
SPEAKER_01 (05:53):
Okay.
Let's do a little level settinghere about the system that you
run.
Can you tick through, director,just some facts and figures,
just for our listeners about thescope of your department across
Ohio, how big it is, things likethat.
SPEAKER_03 (06:06):
Well, I think one thing that's interesting to note
is it's not all about prisons.
Um, we do inspect and or fund alot of community work, like uh
CBCFs, community-basedcorrectional facilities, halfway
houses.
Um, we inspect jails, we inspectjail construction, um, you know,
right standards for certainparts of community correction.
(06:29):
So there's a lot that's going onoutside the prisons.
Um, the parole officers work forthe department.
We do probation for eightcounties, a lot of grant funding
for the counties also.
So there's all a large part ofour business is outside the
prisons.
And then the parole board doesalso work for the department.
(06:49):
And then you have 28 prisons.
So we have 28 prisons, three ofthem are private, the rest are
public.
Um, right now there's about45,500 incarcerated people.
That number fluctuates, uh,mostly up.
Um I think in our peak we have51,000 incarcerated people.
So we've been doing a lot ofdiversion in Ohio to give people
(07:11):
chances to um get off the pathto prison.
And that's been working reallywell in the state, all the
parties concerned.
Uh, but we do supervise about22,000 people on um post-release
control and parole.
And let's see, we have almost12,000 staff, and then we have
another 1,500 or so contractors.
(07:32):
Um, 6,000 volunteers come intoour prisons.
That's awesome.
I love the volunteers, and I'mso thankful for them.
More than half of our staff areofficers, about 6,200 or so are
correction officers, and about600 are parole officers.
So vast majority of our staffare officers.
Um, I don't know.
(07:53):
There's a lot of stuff.
Do you want to know about mentalhealth stats or anything like
that?
SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
Sure.
If you've got them ready, whichI I bet you do.
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
I I do.
So, you know, about 28% of thepeople incarcerated are mentally
ill, which I think that's alittle higher than the general
population.
And 65% of them moderate to veryhigh needs for substance abuse
programming.
So when you look at it, um wedivide our mental health folks
(08:20):
into seriously mentally ill andand then a more stable
population.
The seriously mentally ill makeup about 10% of the um
population of people that arementally ill.
And 10% of our total totalpopulation, actually, and then
people that are just morestable, that's about 18%.
(08:42):
So 28% of our whole populationis mentally ill, some of them
very, very sick.
Between the people who havesubstance abuse problems and the
people who are mentally ill,there's a big overlap of a lot
of people who have both.
So we try to take care of bothof those needs.
Um, and it's an interestingenvironment to work in with both
(09:02):
of those needs.
SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
Yeah.
So when you were talking aboutum, you know, about the total
population um of about 45,000 umincarcerated people.
Of that population, um, willthey eventually be returned to
society, released and returned?
98%.
(09:24):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (09:24):
About 98% of everyone um comes out at some
point.
Yeah.
So we have to know that, right?
We have to make sure that we runa system where the people that
are leaving are going to be ourneighbors.
That's what we're essentiallydoing.
We're supporting people uh intogetting out the things they need
to be the best neighborpossible.
(09:45):
I like to think of prisons as ahealing place.
And some people think that'skind of crazy.
I but if you think about it, Ijust told you how many people
are have behavioral healthissues, how many people have um
substance abuse issues.
Those are things that werecognize as diseases in America
and Ohio.
And so if that's the case withso many of the people we have,
(10:05):
we essentially are in thebusiness of helping these people
heal.
SPEAKER_01 (10:10):
Not to age all three of us, but we all three have a
little gray hair.
So I'm betting that some of uslike to cover that, Scott.
But yes.
But I'm betting that we can allremember back in the day, let's
say, when it was, well, lockthem up and throw away the key.
And and so a lot has changed.
I I I know, Stephanie, I don'tknow, I I I bet you agree.
(10:32):
I love hearing it's a healingplace.
And and I also wonder, director,that that 98% number, I think
that would surprise a lot ofpeople, just the general public.
SPEAKER_03 (10:42):
I absolutely think people think that no one's
coming home.
And I when you get this job andyou're doing this work, you have
to realize, you know, I wenthome one day to go to
McDonald's, and who did I seebut the person that I just used
to see in the living unit whereI worked, right?
So really, you're gonna seethese people at Walmart, you're
gonna see these people whereveryou're out and about.
(11:04):
I went to Cleveland and wasstanding on the corner waiting
for the light to change, andthree people that knew me came
up and said hello, and they werefrom the prison system.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
Wow.
What's the number onemisconception about the prison
system and about those who areincarcerated?
SPEAKER_03 (11:19):
I mean, I've been doing it so long that I really
uh had to ask somebody like,what do you think the
misconceptions are?
And they said that everyone's ina cell.
And you know, they're not.
Uh in Ohio, a large percent ofthe buildings that we have are
what we call open bay.
They're essentially large areaswith people living in monk beds,
(11:42):
not all separated.
And I think they're right aboutthat.
So it's more like a collegecampus.
They're not all locked down allthe time, particularly the lower
the security level, the morefreedom.
So there are definitely prisonsthat are like what you imagine
from Shawshank Redemption.
But there are also the majorityof our prisons, people are up
going to school, walking around.
(12:03):
Um, basically, the worse youbehave, the more restrictions
you get, and the better youbehave and the more
rehabilitated you are, the morefreedom you have.
SPEAKER_01 (12:11):
And educational opportunities too.
SPEAKER_03 (12:14):
Absolutely.
But we do have college in all ofour prisons.
Um, that's just something I seeeducation as a necessity, not a
privilege.
And I think in the past it'sbeen seen as a privilege.
But realistically, if we wantpeople to think differently,
what better way to do that thaneducation?
So we have vocationalprogramming, we have
(12:35):
apprenticeships, we havecollege, of course, and then you
know, A, B, E, G, E D.
Um, you know, we have theaverage reading score of people
coming into prison is closer tothe sixth grade.
So we have a lot of people thatwe need to start at that point
and move forward.
And quite frankly, uh, you'renot gonna be real successful if
(12:57):
you cannot read.
So there's a lot of people thatwe're just trying to get there
with.
So if you think about it, ourteachers do great work.
Um, every single person thatthey're working with to get a
high school equivalency or GED,they already failed in the
public school outside theprison.
So our teachers are working witha hundred percent of people who
(13:19):
couldn't be fully educatedoutside the prison, and they do
great work.
SPEAKER_00 (13:25):
I think that one of the things that people don't
realize, again, I mean, there'sa reason why rehabilitation is
before correction.
SPEAKER_03 (13:35):
It is in Ohio, but in most other places.
Some places are still theDepartment of Correction.
Um, but in Ohio, the prisonsystem started out in the
Department of Mental Health andHygiene.
And it was only 53 or 54 yearsago that it was pulled out into
its own agency.
So a lot of the people thatworked there at first were
(13:57):
actually people who had workeduh for mental health before.
Um, in fact, PickwayCorrectional Institution was a
mental health hospital at onepoint.
And I can remember going therewhen I was new, when I first
took that first job.
And some of the people therethat were correction officers
have been working in the mentalhealth hospital and then just
(14:18):
moved over when it became aprison.
So the DNA of our department hasalways been very much about
rehabilitation, I think, becauseof how we started and where we
started here.
It's not the case in everystate, but that's how what Ohio
formed.
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
And then you came on board with um Governor DeWine's
administration kind of as avisionary change agent.
We'll just say that, andestablished some core values to
kind of change, make thosechanges from the start.
Let's talk about some of thethings that you wanted to make
sure that you put into place.
SPEAKER_03 (14:54):
Well, I think take care of our staff, they were
transform our offenders.
That's really one of the firstthings because you know, razor
ribbon wire, uh isolation, uhhandcuffs, they don't reform
people.
People reform people.
Um when you ask people who haveleft prison who was most
(15:15):
instrumental in helping changeyour life, you probably think
they would say teacher orsomething like that, mental
health professional.
Nope.
They say correction officers.
Correction officers spend eightto sixteen hours a day in the
living units with these umpeople who are incarcerated.
That means their demeanor, howthey treat people, saying hello
(15:37):
in the morning, role modelingbehavior, um, that impacts the
people that are incarcerated.
And of course, programming.
So any kind of programming thatthey're getting that helps them
with their criminogenic needs,that's gonna help them as well.
But if you don't get to theprogramming, if you're in the
unit laying around, not doinganything, you know, your
correction officer can tell youyou need to be at school, go to
(15:59):
school, just like we do with ourkids.
And maybe your correctionofficer might say, How'd you do
on the GED test?
Or, you know, those kinds ofthings happen.
So I think we have thisviewpoint that correction
officers are stormtroopers orsomething, but they're actually
not.
They're people and they interactwith the incarcerated people in
a professional manner.
And that means some people aregetting conversation and that
(16:22):
they wouldn't have had before.
Maybe no one ever asked themabout how they did after they
went to school or whatever.
So we know our staff to be ashealthy as possible so that they
are able to help transform ouroffenders.
And that's really the first one.
And the second one is one team,one purpose.
And the team isn't just ourstaff.
(16:42):
Uh, some people are surprisedwhen I say the incarcerated
people are part of the team, butthey outnumber us by quite a
bit.
I told you the numbers.
Um, if they're not trying tobehave, um, we would be in
chaos, right?
So at any given moment, a goodnumber of them are doing exactly
what they're supposed to do.
And when they're doing that, umthey're on the team, right?
We have peers, peer counselors,tutors.
(17:06):
Um, some people have beentrained to do programming.
We have people that already gottheir college degrees that are
still in the prison.
They may teach something.
So we try to let them mentor andhave a reason to get up in the
morning and help the others.
Um, the families of theincarcerated people can be on
our team.
If it's necessary, we would calla family member and have them
(17:29):
help us with the person who'sincarcerated, getting them to go
in a certain direction.
And of course, them coming tovisit is very important.
I told you we have 6,000volunteers there on the team.
So, really, the team's as big asanybody who's um trying to
fulfill our mission, vision, andvalues.
So that's really important thatwe all know what we're doing and
we're all going in the samedirection.
(17:50):
And then civility towards all.
Um, we're not all perfect.
Sometimes we get mad, sometimeswe yell.
But the general tone of thingsshould be civility.
And, you know, you always hearabout Midwestern values here in
Ohio.
And quite frankly, I say youhave that outside the prison.
Just bring it inside the prisonwith you and keep acting the
same way you always acted.
(18:11):
And then we will have a civilenvironment, and it's going to
be better for everybody, right?
I don't want to be in anenvironment where the
incarcerated people are umverbally abusive, nor do they
want to live in an environmentwhere we're doing that to them.
So we we all try to be civil toeach other.
And don't get me wrong, thepeople that are incarcerated are
not choir boys.
Everything's not perfect, right?
(18:33):
We do have uh problems, but thisis what the goal is, this is
what the vision is.
And then last one is hope is jobone.
And people think the hope isjust for the incarcerated
people, and it is, but it's alsofor the family because think
about if your person's involvedwith substance abuse or if
they've been living, theirbehavior health problems haven't
been calibrated, they probablyhaven't been that great of a
(18:56):
family member.
We need to establish theconnection, the family
engagement, so then we'll givetheir person a chance when they
come back out, right?
So we need the family to havehope.
Most people spend their firstnights out of prison with their
family.
If we can give the family hopeand get them re-engaged with the
incarcerated people, there's achance for that to occur.
(19:16):
And it's very powerful.
And of course, the staff have tohave hope.
When I first started working incorrections, um, I actually
thought the whole job was likejust keep them in the fence and
keep everybody alive.
And it is, that's part of thejob, but it's not the whole job.
And I didn't really have hope.
I was working in a pre-releasecenter, and that meant we would
(19:37):
get about 60 to 100 people inand out every week.
And I would see some of the samepeople come back a few years
later or something.
And I got to thinking to myself,boy, this is swash, rinse,
repeat.
What's the point of all this?
Well, I wish I'd known then whatI teach everyone now, which is,
you know, two-thirds of thepeople, more than two-thirds of
the people, don't come back.
(19:57):
Um, they come, they get theirneeds met, and they do not come
back, you know.
And I didn't know that backthen.
So I start out every newemployee class asking them, how
many people do you think comeback?
And a lot of times they'll saybetween 40 and 80%.
A lot of times more toward the80% end.
I'm like, how could you do a jobwhere you fail 80% of the time,
right?
(20:17):
So we need the staff to havehope.
So we might bring back alumni,incarcerated people.
And it's really great for theincarcerated people to see them,
but also for our staff, youknow, that they they're
thriving.
Then, you know, I help make thisperson successful.
There's no better feeling thanthat.
So those are the four things weconcentrate on in terms of how
(20:38):
we want to operate the prisonsystem.
SPEAKER_01 (20:40):
There are a lot of things.
We're Stephanie and I are bothtaking notes here, and a couple,
I I want to come back to yourvolunteers for a second.
You said 6,000 volunteers.
Again, I think that's somethingthat the general public would be
surprised to know and wouldmaybe motivate others out there
who listened to these episodes,going, you know what, I can do
that.
And maybe think it's um when Ilived in another city, our
(21:02):
family dentist, she volunteeredher time at a women's facility,
women's prison.
She loved doing that work.
It really fulfilled many thingsin her.
So, what kinds of volunteeropportunities are there?
SPEAKER_03 (21:17):
Probably the largest cohort of volunteers we have are
religious volunteers.
That's mentoring and umfellowshipping and Bible studies
and all of the kinds of thingsyou think are associated with
that.
And then we have a large numberthat are um NA, AA, um, those
kinds of things.
Um, but we also have people thatare just teaching people how to
(21:40):
crochet or um the harmony uhchoir.
Have you ever heard of that?
Well, we have three um prisonsthat have incarcerated person
harmony choirs, and the peoplethat are in the harmony choir on
the outside come inside, teachthem to sing, and then you know,
we do concerts and some of themcome out.
(22:00):
So that kind of thing, justinteracting with people, you
know you're not forgotten.
That's one thing that's veryimportant about the volunteers
to the incarcerated people.
And they always say, I'm talkingto someone normal, but what they
just mean not a staff member,right?
And it is a different kind ofconversation you're gonna have
if they're if they're just fromthe free world, we call it, and
(22:22):
not a staff member, right?
So it's really many differentthings.
Some teaching financial uhservices, um helping do taxes.
I mean, sure just about anythingyou would want to do, you could
probably find a place to do it.
And we welcome the volunteers asteammates, part of our one team,
(22:43):
one purpose, helping everybodyreform.
SPEAKER_00 (22:45):
You've already discussed some of the mental
health challenges, some of thesubstance abuse challenges among
the incarcerated.
What about within theorganization and corrections
officers and the staff members?
What about their their mentalhealth?
SPEAKER_03 (23:02):
I think it might be interesting for some people to
know that about a third of ourstaff suffer from PTSD.
Um, probably about 4,000 of ourstaff are um from the military.
And then things happen inside ofthe facilities that are things
you would not normally see outand about.
(23:22):
Um, for example, I did see awoman who had committed suicide.
Now I've never seen that out andabout, but I did see it in the
prison.
You know what I mean?
So there might be fighting anddifferent things that you see
things, or you have toparticipate in helping to break
things up, or even thehealthcare issues that people
have, you know, that you mighthave to give somebody CPR.
(23:43):
So there's a lot that goes oninside the prison that can be
traumatic.
And there's, of course, peoplelived a life before they became
staff members.
So about 34% of our correctionofficers particularly have PTSD.
And then the average lifespan ofa correction officer is in
different studies 59, sometimes55 to 59 years.
(24:06):
And you know, in the generalpublic, it's in excess of 75
years.
So people that do this work arequite literally giving their
lives to help other people puttheir lives together.
So people don't think aboutthat, you know what I mean?
They always think about um themovies.
There's probably been moremovies made about prisons than
(24:27):
just about any other topic.
So, you know, probably about a40% higher suicide rate for
correction officers than thereare for just free people that
are not associated with umprison systems.
When you're talking about stufflike that, you have to take care
of your staff.
That's one of our uh verybedrock values.
So um we started the employeessupport team during this
(24:51):
administration, and it wasreally just about trying to make
sure that we had someone to talkto, someone to guide you to
other services, trying to makesure that our staff are our
whole, not just so they can dotheir job, but also so they can
have a good life.
Everybody has a family andresponsibilities outside the
(25:12):
prison, and we don't want themto be in this shape.
I'd like to see the 59 yearsrise, right, to be the same as
people who don't work in prison.
So many different things westarted doing to try to uh get
the health care, mental healthcare for the staff uh up to
scratch.
I think that we have done a lotwith stigma.
(25:35):
Um we never used to talk aboutit before.
Now people are saying that theyneed help.
Um when you're providing allthose services to the
incarcerated people, if you youknow what can happen, right, if
you're getting treatment and youstart to have faith in that if
you've never seen it before andyou start to see up close and
personal the difference it makesfor the incarcerated people, you
(25:56):
know that it works.
Uh, and then you might want touh pursue that for yourself.
But really, this is hard work,and people don't really think
about that.
They think long throw them away,lock them up, and they forget
that there's people theresupervising them and trying to
keep everybody safe.
SPEAKER_01 (26:14):
What can we do in terms of your partners in the
nonprofit world here at OSPF?
And again, we have listenershipfrom other organizations, and
what can we do to partner withyou?
Maybe it's on that volunteerlevel or some other things,
maybe it's bringing in advocacy.
We talk about breaking stigmasall the time in mental health
and suicide prevention.
Um, how can we help?
(26:35):
How can the nonprofit worldhelp?
SPEAKER_03 (26:37):
I think that we do have some really good
partnerships, and of course, wecould always take on more, but
um we're trying to get mantherapy right now.
I don't know if you've heard ofthat before.
Um, thinking about probably 70%of our staff are male.
So it's kind of important thatwe make sure that we're trying
to figure out how to drive themen toward help because the
(27:00):
women are a little bit morewilling, I think.
So anything, um, like like therewas a nonprofit that came and
they were talking about we'd hada traumatic event, and they were
they just take people out intothe woods to camp.
SPEAKER_02 (27:12):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (27:12):
And uh yeah, so we did that, uh, offered that to
some of our staff.
So that's the kind of thing.
And then, you know, like I said,we do have pearl officers and um
they work on task force, so it'snot all just supervision of our
pearlies, but they assist thefederal task force and the local
task force, and they're involvedin shooting.
So we have someone that came tous and was like helping us with
(27:34):
our first responder, um, youknow, witnessing of firearms use
out in the world.
You that's not something you'reexpecting to do if you're not a
police officer, you're notexpecting to see that.
So if you're out there andyou've heard anything I said
that you think, I could helpwith that, or uh, that's in my
swing pattern, we would love foryou to contact us because we're
always trying to figure out howto interact and make our one
(27:58):
team bigger.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Stephanie, you could break some news about man
therapy.
SPEAKER_00 (28:02):
Yes.
When I heard man therapy, um,obviously the music to my ears,
because uh that's one of theprograms here in Ohio that we
lead through the Ohio SuicidePrevention Foundation.
And in fact, we um we as uhseveral people on our staff came
and participated in kind of alistening session among the
(28:25):
corrections officers as well asthe incarcerated people and a
lot of talking about mentalwellness, breaking stigmas,
talking about suicideprevention.
What did you learn as thedirector of the department
during those discussions?
SPEAKER_03 (28:40):
I gotta say, I've been there since 1993, so I
wasn't really having a lot ofrevelations other than a couple
things.
One, I thought to myself, youknow, the incarcerated people,
we pretty much we've got themcovered.
We have a huge mental healthstaff, we refer people to mental
health when we need to likethey've got a lot of care.
(29:02):
Um, however, the staff, youknow, we kind of were like,
well, you have insurance, youhave e employee support through
EAP and things like that, andthat's just not going to be
enough.
And in the past, like I said,the staff don't really talk
about that.
But during the listeningsession, they were just very
forthcoming.
(29:22):
And that is when I was like, weneed man therapy right now.
Um, because I think some of themreally don't express that they
would use the resources that wepoint them at.
But I do think that they woulduse the self-service of man
therapy, and I think it'stailored toward their sort of
culture.
So I'm very excited to get that.
But I I think what I learned wasthere's even more need than I
(29:45):
thought.
And we've been doing a lot, andwe've got them to the point
where they are talking about it,which is great, and where some
of them are seeking services,but now we just need to get more
people connected to the servicesthey need.
But I really Really appreciatethe staff at Chilakothi
Correctional Institution forbeing so forthcoming, for giving
(30:06):
us so much information, andthat's a good jumping off point
for us to do what we're going todo next.
SPEAKER_01 (30:11):
So we have some things to talk about with the
director, Stephanie, after thispodcast when it comes to demand
therapy.
So we've got some stuff tofollow up on.
That's really great.
Let's tee up something that wementioned at the very beginning,
and that is really your nationalfootprint here.
In 2024, you led a nationalgroup to identify 16
determinants of post-releasesuccess, aiming to help prisons
(30:33):
better prepare incarceratedpeople for that successful
integration back to theirrespective communities.
We don't we hopefully you're notthinking, oh boy, I've got to
memorize all 16 here, but giveus the broad strokes of what you
found out and kind of thatnational discussion on this very
topic.
SPEAKER_03 (30:50):
The discussion started because during COVID the
courts shut down.
And because the courts were shutdown, people were not
recidivating back into prison.
And that's the moment that I waslike, okay, recidivism has never
been a great measure.
It's not calculated the samenationally.
And now we have the court shutdown.
So that's artificiallysuppressing it.
What else is there out there?
(31:11):
What how can we do our workbetter?
Or something I was alwayswondering.
So I mentioned that at a meetingof people who do the same work
that I do with the directors ofthe country.
And they were like, okay, BigMouth, you're going to have to
run the committee, right?
So there was probably abouteight to ten states that work
together with our researchpartners and our directors.
And um what we did was we hadour research staff do uh like a
(31:36):
review of everything that's outthere.
What does the science tell us interms of the research, what
works?
And then we said, okay, well,how can we begin to measure and
be accountable for what worksand point ourselves at that
instead of just recidivism?
So things there are things likeeducational access and quality,
(31:57):
healthcare access and quality,neighborhood and the built
environment, social andcommunity context, and economic
stability.
Those are, and to make that moresimple, the the more educated
you are, the less likely you areto return to prison, right?
If your healthcare, includingyour behavioral health care, is
taken care of, you're stable,you're less likely to return to
(32:19):
prison.
So we know these things, andit's 20 years worth of data says
the same thing.
Now we just have tooperationalize it.
So what we started looking atare how can we count these
things and how can we do it in away that might be transportable
across state lines so we can seewho might have a best practice
and you know duplicate that.
So we started uh looking at, forexample, regarding employment,
(32:43):
how many people have a jobwithin the first quarter of
leaving prison, how many peoplehave a job within the first year
of leaving prison, um, whattypes of employment are gonna be
most readily accessible to ourpeople?
Um, I can tell you that I wantto make decisions that I don't
have to wait five years tofigure out if it worked or not.
(33:04):
So when you only measureyourself with recidivism, you
make a change and you're notgonna know really if it had an
impact for quite some time.
But when you're tracking theseother variables, you'll know
pretty quickly if it's workingor not.
So one of the things we lookedat was employment.
And I there was a program, uh,barbering and cosmetology,
right?
And I thought these programshave been around since 1993 and
(33:27):
before.
Do we really need these?
They're not part of Ohio'sin-demand jobs.
Shouldn't we point theseresources at Ohio's in-demand
jobs?
And what we found out was thatyou're more likely to get a job
if you're a cosmetologist or abarber and you get employed
faster and you make more money.
Now, I don't know if they'reworking in their field, but I
can tell you they get employedfaster, they make more money.
(33:49):
So, of course, we're going tokeep those programs.
So that's another thing that'sgood about this, these
determinants is you can look andsee if this is effective and are
we keeping it?
As a director, I'm very pleasedby that.
But anyway, we now know 35.5% ofthe people who leave prison get
a job in the first quarter.
However, 50 point some oddpercent have a job within the
(34:13):
first year.
So essentially, we don't gain onit very much after that first
quarter.
And we release 18,000 people ayear.
And I believe that's theworkforce Ohio needs.
They're trained, uh, we'vevocationally, educationally, uh,
soft skills, working together,teamwork, all that kind of
stuff.
They're ready.
(34:34):
So we need to capture as much ofthat as we can.
Um, we need our batting average,getting these people employed to
be as high as possible.
That's what the LieutenantGovernor Tressel would say.
So we're working on that.
But if you don't never know whatthe number was, you can't impact
it.
If you don't know what programsare making the best success, you
can't impact impact it.
So those are things that we lookat.
(34:54):
And then, of course, educationalattainment.
How many people are in school,how many people are achieving
the education, maximizing thatis another, those are several
different factors we can trackbecause all of the science tells
you the more educated you get,you know, these people aren't
coming back and they're gettingjobs.
You know, employment isdefinitely a keystone to like
being able to be successful.
(35:16):
So, you know, those are thingswe track as well as health care.
If you are on psychotropicmedication and that stabilizes
you and makes you employable,but when you leave, you don't
have access to the insurance youneed, you're gonna be
destabilized quite quickly.
So we made a partnership with umthe Department of Medicaid, and
(35:39):
we actually apply for theirMedicaid for those who are
eligible before they leave.
And uh OSU did a study aboutwhether this is effective or not
and determined that it is indeedeffective, that there's a 14.4%
um lowering of recidivism basedupon having this continuity.
(36:00):
Uh that's pretty big.
That's a big swing.
So keeping people it's kind oflogical anyway, keeping people
attached to their medicationmakes them less likely to
decompensate and fail.
Shocker.
Yeah.
You know, so that's how we aredoing that uh here.
So there's just really factorsthat you would look at.
(36:22):
How many people are housed,right?
I did not know.
We had no idea.
And we were able to determine atleast for the two-thirds of the
population who leave that are onsupervision, 80% of them are
housed.
And that's not institutionallyhoused, that's housed.
That's awesome.
We didn't know how what thenumber was going to be.
(36:43):
We how do you move a number,improve a number, you don't even
want to know what it is.
And then for the other third ofpeople who live in prison, we
don't we don't have a way to getthat yet.
We'll probably do some kind ofsurvey or something because the
parole officers, of course,document what's going on with
their caseload, so we knowwhether they're housed or not.
But now we need to figure outhow to get that information for
(37:03):
the people that aren't uh not onsupervision.
So these are the kinds of thingsthat we now know and we can move
these uh figures.
And also, I think if you'reemployed by the department,
knowing how you yourself, as ateacher with a GED class, are
changing things, um, that justgives you all kinds of like,
(37:25):
let's get up and go to work, youknow what I mean?
You know that you have animpact.
SPEAKER_01 (37:28):
There are all kinds of light bulb moments in this
episode.
Seriously, with all the datathat you're leaning into,
director, you know, it goes backto that adage.
You you can't manage what youdon't track.
Right.
You're tracking a lot, which isreally great.
SPEAKER_03 (37:40):
Some of the information's hard to get.
So of course we startconversations about that.
Um the legislature did pass a uha bill about getting uh birth
certificates and social securitycards and all of those things,
which we are doing.
Uh so getting that stood up is abig deal because when you get
(38:01):
out, how are you gonna get towork if you don't have those
documents, right?
How are you gonna even cash thecheck we give you on your way
out the door uh without beingswept up into the uh money, the
cash lender type stuff, youknow?
These things are differencemakers in terms when you leave.
So um one thing we like to do isre-entry simulations.
(38:23):
So we take people that don'twork in this industry at all,
put them through what isessentially all the things you
have to do when you leave prisonin order to get up and running.
And I've had people say thingslike, Oh my gosh, I'm a social
worker, I've been doing XYZ ortelling people to do this for
years, and now I see that it'snearly impossible.
(38:43):
So we like to do thosesimulations for people so they
can have these light bulbmoments and kind of adjust what
they're doing to work with ourfolks.
Um, because it's easy to say,well, just go over here and uh,
you know, take this class.
Well, okay, they don't have anytransportation.
That class is nowhere near a busline.
You know, these are all thingsthat they don't think about when
they're making these referrals.
(39:04):
But when you get put through there-entry simulation and have to
buy a bus ticket and get to theclass, then you're thinking, oh,
light bulb, right?
So it's just doing work a littledifferently to tilt things
toward the things that scienceand research say work.
SPEAKER_00 (39:21):
So as we start to wrap up our discussion today, we
really want to know about yourmental health and wellness
journey with everything that youhave on your plate and
everything that you are doing tohelp the incarcerated, to help
the staff.
How do you take care of yourmental wellness and practice
(39:45):
self-care?
SPEAKER_03 (39:46):
Um, I'm a little bit more do as I do, do as I say,
not as I do.
Unfortunately, um I can't havethis idea like um I'll take care
of that later.
Or like self-care is a peskynuisance.
It's stopping me from gettingthings done that I want to get
done, sort of.
And um, the whole time I've beendirector, I've been running a
(40:07):
hundred miles an hour because Ifeel like this is a precious
time and this never be able tomake more impact than I can as
Governor DeWine's director.
And we're doing all the greatthings, right?
I wasn't sleeping, I was goingthrough menopause.
My mother uh had to move hereand be taken care of.
I'm the guardian of some of mysiblings, and you know, just a
(40:30):
lot going on personally andprofessionally, and I just hit
the wall and uh ended up reallyended up in the hospital.
And at that point, I was like,okay, this is really too much.
And so I started trying toactually take care of myself,
probably maybe for the firsttime ever.
And what I had to do was takecare of sleep hygiene.
(40:52):
I was probably only sleepingthree or four hours a night.
Oh boy.
For most of my life, actually.
And uh now I'm up to like fiveor six, which doesn't sound like
much to most people, but it'sway more than I was sleeping.
I'm trying, I'm on my way toeight.
I'm not even sure how that'spossible, but I'll keep going.
But I I set some boundariesaround work where I do not let
(41:13):
anyone schedule a meeting withme before nine.
Now I can choose to do that, butlike say my assistant cannot.
And because I I need time toanswer my emails and do the
other stuff, right?
If I'm in meetings every minute.
So I come in and I can spendthose time before nine o'clock
doing the things I need to getdone.
And then you I wasn't evengetting lunch.
(41:34):
Uh so blocking out some time inthe middle of the day to eat,
and then the last boundary I putin place at work was you can't
schedule a meeting to start withme after 4 p.m.
unless I say so again.
So this keeps things in aframework where I have time in
the beginning of the day, theend of the day, in the middle of
the day to do all those thingsthat no one thinks take any
(41:56):
time.
SPEAKER_02 (41:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (41:57):
Uh so I don't have to take all as much home with
me, right?
I mean, I think I used to paintand swim and do all kinds of
things.
And when I became director, Istarted pushing healthcare for
everybody else and left mineflapping in the breeze.
So, you know, boundaries, sleephygiene, and um, I did seek the
(42:18):
help of professionals, and I'mnot ashamed to say that.
Absolutely.
So I talk about that with mystaff now because I want them to
do the same.
And now I model it, I don't justtalk about it.
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
I remember hearing, and this is very recent, I heard
um OSU president Ted Carter,who, you know, before he got
into academia, he was a fighterpilot and long distinguished
career in the military, but hesays that he calls good sleep a
weapons grade advantage, and hereally leans into that.
SPEAKER_03 (42:50):
You know, he's so right, because you're just like
running through molasses if youhaven't slept enough.
Your body doesn't have enoughtime to heal itself.
Um, it's funny because I lost asignificant amount of weight and
people keep saying, Oh, how didyou do that?
And I was like, Yeah, I slept.
Isn't that crazy?
The body's recovering.
Yeah, right.
Yes, right.
SPEAKER_00 (43:10):
Yeah.
Taking care of yourself mentallyand physically is so important.
SPEAKER_03 (43:13):
And you know, it could be something other than
just go to bed early.
So I well, 9:30, I don't dealwith any um television and stuff
like that anymore.
And then I have a ritual and Isay it's very important to wash
your face.
Now I don't wear makeup, butstill you're it's self-care,
right?
It's that little moment to thatyou get for yourself, and um
(43:35):
that's part of the ritual of megoing to sleep, whatever.
And then um I try to be asleepby between 10 and 11.
I was staying awake till liketwo in the morning, reading,
researching, and like, come onnow.
Like, when are you gonna sleep?
And I found out also that youknow, I needed hormone
(43:56):
replacement therapy.
So I was waking up in the middleof the night only because of
that.
So sometimes you might need touh really start to try to sleep
and then figure out that, hey,you need some help doing that.
Um, and in my case, menopausewas not my friend.
And I need I absolutely neededhormone replacement therapy,
which was then I got to sleepthrough the night, right?
(44:16):
If you wake up at three in themorning, are you gonna go back
to sleep or are you gonna dostuff?
Well, in my case, it's do stuffbecause I can't just imagine
laying in bed.
So if I woke up at like four,I'd just be up for the rest of
the day.
And now I sleep because I'm nothaving those disruptions due to
hormonal changes at night.
So it's not all just abouttrying to lay down.
It's about you might have otherissues you need to work on, you
(44:39):
know, physically.
So all that together has reallybeen a one-year journey for me.
And it's been great.
SPEAKER_00 (44:49):
Well, first of all, we really appreciate you being
open and talking about the thechallenges that you've had and
how you've been able to workthrough those.
So we really appreciate youbeing open about that.
And thank you so much forjoining us today, Director
Annette Chambers Smith, and yourdedicated public service.
We are really very proud to callyou one of our partners here at
(45:12):
the Ohio Suicide PreventionFoundation.
Thank you.
And to you art listeners, thankyou as well.
When you listen to our episodes,you break stigmas, break
barriers, and you care aboutmental health and saving lives.
This is Voices for SuicidePrevention, brought to you by
the Ohio Suicide PreventionFoundation.
Welcome to our October episode of Voices for
Suicide Prevention.
As we like to say, ourconversations are real talk,
real honest, real life.
I'm Stephanie Booker.
SPEAKER_01 (00:16):
And I'm Scott Light.
We have a visionary leaderjoining us today, and not just
leading our state, but leadingnationally in various roles, and
by showing the nation how Ohiodoes it, how we benchmark, how
we establish best practices forall.
Our guest is the director ofODRC, the Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction,Annette Chambers Smith.
(00:38):
Director, welcome.
Thank you.
It's good to have you here.
As our listeners will find out,and with several other national
titles as well, Stephanie and Iwere wondering when you sleep,
but we'll get to that as we gohere.
Again, we're very fortunate thatyou, your team, are leading the
way in several ways.
Before we get to all that, couldwe ask uh maybe a little bit
(00:58):
more about your personal story,your 30 years of correctional
experience, and what brought youto this work?
SPEAKER_03 (01:04):
That's kind of interesting.
Um, my mother was a prisonnurse.
So she worked at three differentinstitutions, and I can remember
taking her to drop her off atwork and stuff like that.
And I had said my whole life,there is no way I'm ever working
in a prison.
And then uh I was in college andI met the administrative
(01:28):
assistant to a warden, and hewas trying to hire somebody to
work in the records office.
Um, that's like computing timeand fast and speedy trial
paperwork and stuff like that.
And he's like, you should apply.
And I was like, No, I don't wantto work in a prison, but he kept
after me.
So I thought, well, you know,I'll go in and look around.
So I did apply.
There were 200 people thatapplied for the job.
(01:50):
This is back when the brass ringthat you could get would be like
being a civil servant was thebest, it was the awesome job
everyone wanted.
So I thought, well, there's noway I'll ever get this job, but
I wanted to see where he worked.
Well, as it turns out, I wastheir selected candidate, and
they had me go talk to thewarden up for my second
interview.
And he said, I don't want tohire you because you're
overqualified.
(02:11):
And I said, Yeah, I'll give youa year.
And he said, Okay, on that note,I'll hire you.
Well, I mean, that was in 1993,and I'm still in the industry.
When I became director, it waskind of funny for me to go home
and say, Hey, mom, you know, Itold you I was never gonna work
at prisons.
Now I'm actually the director.
So kind of full story.
SPEAKER_01 (02:30):
What'd she say to that?
SPEAKER_03 (02:31):
She's proud.
Of course she is.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great.
Very much.
SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
That one year turned into a few more years than that.
Um, going from that records jobto a deputy director.
Um, and then you stepped back alittle bit.
You went into the private sectorfor a couple of years before you
came back.
Why, why, why, why did you comeback?
What what changed in those yearsthat you were away that you
wanted to come back as director?
SPEAKER_03 (02:57):
Well, really, I had no desire to come back.
I was living in Florida andenjoying my job in private
industry, but Governor DeWinewon the election and his
transition team started callingme.
And I thought they were callingme to ask me advice, like who
should they try to hire?
So I was like, Well, thisperson's really good and this
person's got skills and don'tsleep on this person, you know,
(03:18):
kind of thing.
And then finally, one of themsaid, Yeah, we're not calling
you for your advice.
We're calling you because wewant you to be the director.
And I was like, Oh, I laughed atthem.
I never thought about it.
So after a while, I didn't sayanything back to him either.
And after a while, one of them,we were on a board together.
He said, You're gonna need to,you know, say yes or no.
(03:42):
And I'm like, Well, I'mconflicted.
And he said, Well, you betterget unconflicted because we got
to move on.
So I realized that I've beenmaking like pros and cons lists,
and just being real, there aremore cons than pros.
But I decided to pray about itbecause that's what I do
usually, and I I hadn't been,and God said, You already know
(04:03):
what to do.
He talks to me kind of like thatif I haven't been listening fast
enough.
And quite frankly, I did.
Like I had a fully formed visionof what things could be and um
how I could help that.
And I think I'm just walking inmy purpose that God gave me.
And I saw that after my prayers,and I said yes, and then I got
(04:26):
interviewed by Governor DeWine,and I love him.
And I think I was even moreconvinced that this is the right
thing to do after having met himand gotten to talk to him about
what he wanted to do in thestate of Ohio.
Uh, so my husband actually hadto pack us up because we didn't
have that much time before theadministration was gonna start.
(04:46):
So here my poor husband istrying to pack everything, and I
have already moved to Ohio.
And he actually packed a trashcan.
And I said to him, Why did youpack a full trash can?
He goes, Well, I mean, I didn'twant to mess anything up or get
in trouble.
So I just thought I'll packevery single thing in here.
And he truly did.
So he was a trooper.
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
So everything came to Ohio, including a little bit
of Florida trash.
SPEAKER_00 (05:11):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (05:11):
I I also have to think uh here's where my mind
goes.
I think of Florida weatherversus Ohio weather from let's
say December through April.
That was a con.
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (05:23):
How did you rectify that one?
Well, I honestly I do like theseason changes.
Okay.
But I really prefer the Floridaweather.
I I could take a walk at thebeach before I went to work.
It was just great.
And I was living where I used tovacation.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02 (05:39):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (05:40):
But back here, they were all my friends.
And there's nothing like gettingyour sweaters and boots out, and
you know, that changes of theseason.
Just when you get sick of anyone season Ohio, the next one
comes.
Right, right.
So I've always enjoyed that.
SPEAKER_01 (05:53):
Okay.
Let's do a little level settinghere about the system that you
run.
Can you tick through, director,just some facts and figures,
just for our listeners about thescope of your department across
Ohio, how big it is, things likethat.
SPEAKER_03 (06:06):
Well, I think one thing that's interesting to note
is it's not all about prisons.
Um, we do inspect and or fund alot of community work, like uh
CBCFs, community-basedcorrectional facilities, halfway
houses.
Um, we inspect jails, we inspectjail construction, um, you know,
right standards for certainparts of community correction.
(06:29):
So there's a lot that's going onoutside the prisons.
Um, the parole officers work forthe department.
We do probation for eightcounties, a lot of grant funding
for the counties also.
So there's all a large part ofour business is outside the
prisons.
And then the parole board doesalso work for the department.
(06:49):
And then you have 28 prisons.
So we have 28 prisons, three ofthem are private, the rest are
public.
Um, right now there's about45,500 incarcerated people.
That number fluctuates, uh,mostly up.
Um I think in our peak we have51,000 incarcerated people.
So we've been doing a lot ofdiversion in Ohio to give people
(07:11):
chances to um get off the pathto prison.
And that's been working reallywell in the state, all the
parties concerned.
Uh, but we do supervise about22,000 people on um post-release
control and parole.
And let's see, we have almost12,000 staff, and then we have
another 1,500 or so contractors.
(07:32):
Um, 6,000 volunteers come intoour prisons.
That's awesome.
I love the volunteers, and I'mso thankful for them.
More than half of our staff areofficers, about 6,200 or so are
correction officers, and about600 are parole officers.
So vast majority of our staffare officers.
Um, I don't know.
(07:53):
There's a lot of stuff.
Do you want to know about mentalhealth stats or anything like
that?
SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
Sure.
If you've got them ready, whichI I bet you do.
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
I I do.
So, you know, about 28% of thepeople incarcerated are mentally
ill, which I think that's alittle higher than the general
population.
And 65% of them moderate to veryhigh needs for substance abuse
programming.
So when you look at it, um wedivide our mental health folks
(08:20):
into seriously mentally ill andand then a more stable
population.
The seriously mentally ill makeup about 10% of the um
population of people that arementally ill.
And 10% of our total totalpopulation, actually, and then
people that are just morestable, that's about 18%.
(08:42):
So 28% of our whole populationis mentally ill, some of them
very, very sick.
Between the people who havesubstance abuse problems and the
people who are mentally ill,there's a big overlap of a lot
of people who have both.
So we try to take care of bothof those needs.
Um, and it's an interestingenvironment to work in with both
(09:02):
of those needs.
SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
Yeah.
So when you were talking aboutum, you know, about the total
population um of about 45,000 umincarcerated people.
Of that population, um, willthey eventually be returned to
society, released and returned?
98%.
(09:24):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (09:24):
About 98% of everyone um comes out at some
point.
Yeah.
So we have to know that, right?
We have to make sure that we runa system where the people that
are leaving are going to be ourneighbors.
That's what we're essentiallydoing.
We're supporting people uh intogetting out the things they need
to be the best neighborpossible.
(09:45):
I like to think of prisons as ahealing place.
And some people think that'skind of crazy.
I but if you think about it, Ijust told you how many people
are have behavioral healthissues, how many people have um
substance abuse issues.
Those are things that werecognize as diseases in America
and Ohio.
And so if that's the case withso many of the people we have,
(10:05):
we essentially are in thebusiness of helping these people
heal.
SPEAKER_01 (10:10):
Not to age all three of us, but we all three have a
little gray hair.
So I'm betting that some of uslike to cover that, Scott.
But yes.
But I'm betting that we can allremember back in the day, let's
say, when it was, well, lockthem up and throw away the key.
And and so a lot has changed.
I I I know, Stephanie, I don'tknow, I I I bet you agree.
(10:32):
I love hearing it's a healingplace.
And and I also wonder, director,that that 98% number, I think
that would surprise a lot ofpeople, just the general public.
SPEAKER_03 (10:42):
I absolutely think people think that no one's
coming home.
And I when you get this job andyou're doing this work, you have
to realize, you know, I wenthome one day to go to
McDonald's, and who did I seebut the person that I just used
to see in the living unit whereI worked, right?
So really, you're gonna seethese people at Walmart, you're
gonna see these people whereveryou're out and about.
(11:04):
I went to Cleveland and wasstanding on the corner waiting
for the light to change, andthree people that knew me came
up and said hello, and they werefrom the prison system.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
Wow.
What's the number onemisconception about the prison
system and about those who areincarcerated?
SPEAKER_03 (11:19):
I mean, I've been doing it so long that I really
uh had to ask somebody like,what do you think the
misconceptions are?
And they said that everyone's ina cell.
And you know, they're not.
Uh in Ohio, a large percent ofthe buildings that we have are
what we call open bay.
They're essentially large areaswith people living in monk beds,
(11:42):
not all separated.
And I think they're right aboutthat.
So it's more like a collegecampus.
They're not all locked down allthe time, particularly the lower
the security level, the morefreedom.
So there are definitely prisonsthat are like what you imagine
from Shawshank Redemption.
But there are also the majorityof our prisons, people are up
going to school, walking around.
(12:03):
Um, basically, the worse youbehave, the more restrictions
you get, and the better youbehave and the more
rehabilitated you are, the morefreedom you have.
SPEAKER_01 (12:11):
And educational opportunities too.
SPEAKER_03 (12:14):
Absolutely.
But we do have college in all ofour prisons.
Um, that's just something I seeeducation as a necessity, not a
privilege.
And I think in the past it'sbeen seen as a privilege.
But realistically, if we wantpeople to think differently,
what better way to do that thaneducation?
So we have vocationalprogramming, we have
(12:35):
apprenticeships, we havecollege, of course, and then you
know, A, B, E, G, E D.
Um, you know, we have theaverage reading score of people
coming into prison is closer tothe sixth grade.
So we have a lot of people thatwe need to start at that point
and move forward.
And quite frankly, uh, you'renot gonna be real successful if
(12:57):
you cannot read.
So there's a lot of people thatwe're just trying to get there
with.
So if you think about it, ourteachers do great work.
Um, every single person thatthey're working with to get a
high school equivalency or GED,they already failed in the
public school outside theprison.
So our teachers are working witha hundred percent of people who
(13:19):
couldn't be fully educatedoutside the prison, and they do
great work.
SPEAKER_00 (13:25):
I think that one of the things that people don't
realize, again, I mean, there'sa reason why rehabilitation is
before correction.
SPEAKER_03 (13:35):
It is in Ohio, but in most other places.
Some places are still theDepartment of Correction.
Um, but in Ohio, the prisonsystem started out in the
Department of Mental Health andHygiene.
And it was only 53 or 54 yearsago that it was pulled out into
its own agency.
So a lot of the people thatworked there at first were
(13:57):
actually people who had workeduh for mental health before.
Um, in fact, PickwayCorrectional Institution was a
mental health hospital at onepoint.
And I can remember going therewhen I was new, when I first
took that first job.
And some of the people therethat were correction officers
have been working in the mentalhealth hospital and then just
(14:18):
moved over when it became aprison.
So the DNA of our department hasalways been very much about
rehabilitation, I think, becauseof how we started and where we
started here.
It's not the case in everystate, but that's how what Ohio
formed.
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
And then you came on board with um Governor DeWine's
administration kind of as avisionary change agent.
We'll just say that, andestablished some core values to
kind of change, make thosechanges from the start.
Let's talk about some of thethings that you wanted to make
sure that you put into place.
SPEAKER_03 (14:54):
Well, I think take care of our staff, they were
transform our offenders.
That's really one of the firstthings because you know, razor
ribbon wire, uh isolation, uhhandcuffs, they don't reform
people.
People reform people.
Um when you ask people who haveleft prison who was most
(15:15):
instrumental in helping changeyour life, you probably think
they would say teacher orsomething like that, mental
health professional.
Nope.
They say correction officers.
Correction officers spend eightto sixteen hours a day in the
living units with these umpeople who are incarcerated.
That means their demeanor, howthey treat people, saying hello
(15:37):
in the morning, role modelingbehavior, um, that impacts the
people that are incarcerated.
And of course, programming.
So any kind of programming thatthey're getting that helps them
with their criminogenic needs,that's gonna help them as well.
But if you don't get to theprogramming, if you're in the
unit laying around, not doinganything, you know, your
correction officer can tell youyou need to be at school, go to
(15:59):
school, just like we do with ourkids.
And maybe your correctionofficer might say, How'd you do
on the GED test?
Or, you know, those kinds ofthings happen.
So I think we have thisviewpoint that correction
officers are stormtroopers orsomething, but they're actually
not.
They're people and they interactwith the incarcerated people in
a professional manner.
And that means some people aregetting conversation and that
(16:22):
they wouldn't have had before.
Maybe no one ever asked themabout how they did after they
went to school or whatever.
So we know our staff to be ashealthy as possible so that they
are able to help transform ouroffenders.
And that's really the first one.
And the second one is one team,one purpose.
And the team isn't just ourstaff.
(16:42):
Uh, some people are surprisedwhen I say the incarcerated
people are part of the team, butthey outnumber us by quite a
bit.
I told you the numbers.
Um, if they're not trying tobehave, um, we would be in
chaos, right?
So at any given moment, a goodnumber of them are doing exactly
what they're supposed to do.
And when they're doing that, umthey're on the team, right?
We have peers, peer counselors,tutors.
(17:06):
Um, some people have beentrained to do programming.
We have people that already gottheir college degrees that are
still in the prison.
They may teach something.
So we try to let them mentor andhave a reason to get up in the
morning and help the others.
Um, the families of theincarcerated people can be on
our team.
If it's necessary, we would calla family member and have them
(17:29):
help us with the person who'sincarcerated, getting them to go
in a certain direction.
And of course, them coming tovisit is very important.
I told you we have 6,000volunteers there on the team.
So, really, the team's as big asanybody who's um trying to
fulfill our mission, vision, andvalues.
So that's really important thatwe all know what we're doing and
we're all going in the samedirection.
(17:50):
And then civility towards all.
Um, we're not all perfect.
Sometimes we get mad, sometimeswe yell.
But the general tone of thingsshould be civility.
And, you know, you always hearabout Midwestern values here in
Ohio.
And quite frankly, I say youhave that outside the prison.
Just bring it inside the prisonwith you and keep acting the
same way you always acted.
(18:11):
And then we will have a civilenvironment, and it's going to
be better for everybody, right?
I don't want to be in anenvironment where the
incarcerated people are umverbally abusive, nor do they
want to live in an environmentwhere we're doing that to them.
So we we all try to be civil toeach other.
And don't get me wrong, thepeople that are incarcerated are
not choir boys.
Everything's not perfect, right?
(18:33):
We do have uh problems, but thisis what the goal is, this is
what the vision is.
And then last one is hope is jobone.
And people think the hope isjust for the incarcerated
people, and it is, but it's alsofor the family because think
about if your person's involvedwith substance abuse or if
they've been living, theirbehavior health problems haven't
been calibrated, they probablyhaven't been that great of a
(18:56):
family member.
We need to establish theconnection, the family
engagement, so then we'll givetheir person a chance when they
come back out, right?
So we need the family to havehope.
Most people spend their firstnights out of prison with their
family.
If we can give the family hopeand get them re-engaged with the
incarcerated people, there's achance for that to occur.
(19:16):
And it's very powerful.
And of course, the staff have tohave hope.
When I first started working incorrections, um, I actually
thought the whole job was likejust keep them in the fence and
keep everybody alive.
And it is, that's part of thejob, but it's not the whole job.
And I didn't really have hope.
I was working in a pre-releasecenter, and that meant we would
(19:37):
get about 60 to 100 people inand out every week.
And I would see some of the samepeople come back a few years
later or something.
And I got to thinking to myself,boy, this is swash, rinse,
repeat.
What's the point of all this?
Well, I wish I'd known then whatI teach everyone now, which is,
you know, two-thirds of thepeople, more than two-thirds of
the people, don't come back.
(19:57):
Um, they come, they get theirneeds met, and they do not come
back, you know.
And I didn't know that backthen.
So I start out every newemployee class asking them, how
many people do you think comeback?
And a lot of times they'll saybetween 40 and 80%.
A lot of times more toward the80% end.
I'm like, how could you do a jobwhere you fail 80% of the time,
right?
(20:17):
So we need the staff to havehope.
So we might bring back alumni,incarcerated people.
And it's really great for theincarcerated people to see them,
but also for our staff, youknow, that they they're
thriving.
Then, you know, I help make thisperson successful.
There's no better feeling thanthat.
So those are the four things weconcentrate on in terms of how
(20:38):
we want to operate the prisonsystem.
SPEAKER_01 (20:40):
There are a lot of things.
We're Stephanie and I are bothtaking notes here, and a couple,
I I want to come back to yourvolunteers for a second.
You said 6,000 volunteers.
Again, I think that's somethingthat the general public would be
surprised to know and wouldmaybe motivate others out there
who listened to these episodes,going, you know what, I can do
that.
And maybe think it's um when Ilived in another city, our
(21:02):
family dentist, she volunteeredher time at a women's facility,
women's prison.
She loved doing that work.
It really fulfilled many thingsin her.
So, what kinds of volunteeropportunities are there?
SPEAKER_03 (21:17):
Probably the largest cohort of volunteers we have are
religious volunteers.
That's mentoring and umfellowshipping and Bible studies
and all of the kinds of thingsyou think are associated with
that.
And then we have a large numberthat are um NA, AA, um, those
kinds of things.
Um, but we also have people thatare just teaching people how to
(21:40):
crochet or um the harmony uhchoir.
Have you ever heard of that?
Well, we have three um prisonsthat have incarcerated person
harmony choirs, and the peoplethat are in the harmony choir on
the outside come inside, teachthem to sing, and then you know,
we do concerts and some of themcome out.
(22:00):
So that kind of thing, justinteracting with people, you
know you're not forgotten.
That's one thing that's veryimportant about the volunteers
to the incarcerated people.
And they always say, I'm talkingto someone normal, but what they
just mean not a staff member,right?
And it is a different kind ofconversation you're gonna have
if they're if they're just fromthe free world, we call it, and
(22:22):
not a staff member, right?
So it's really many differentthings.
Some teaching financial uhservices, um helping do taxes.
I mean, sure just about anythingyou would want to do, you could
probably find a place to do it.
And we welcome the volunteers asteammates, part of our one team,
(22:43):
one purpose, helping everybodyreform.
SPEAKER_00 (22:45):
You've already discussed some of the mental
health challenges, some of thesubstance abuse challenges among
the incarcerated.
What about within theorganization and corrections
officers and the staff members?
What about their their mentalhealth?
SPEAKER_03 (23:02):
I think it might be interesting for some people to
know that about a third of ourstaff suffer from PTSD.
Um, probably about 4,000 of ourstaff are um from the military.
And then things happen inside ofthe facilities that are things
you would not normally see outand about.
(23:22):
Um, for example, I did see awoman who had committed suicide.
Now I've never seen that out andabout, but I did see it in the
prison.
You know what I mean?
So there might be fighting anddifferent things that you see
things, or you have toparticipate in helping to break
things up, or even thehealthcare issues that people
have, you know, that you mighthave to give somebody CPR.
(23:43):
So there's a lot that goes oninside the prison that can be
traumatic.
And there's, of course, peoplelived a life before they became
staff members.
So about 34% of our correctionofficers particularly have PTSD.
And then the average lifespan ofa correction officer is in
different studies 59, sometimes55 to 59 years.
(24:06):
And you know, in the generalpublic, it's in excess of 75
years.
So people that do this work arequite literally giving their
lives to help other people puttheir lives together.
So people don't think aboutthat, you know what I mean?
They always think about um themovies.
There's probably been moremovies made about prisons than
(24:27):
just about any other topic.
So, you know, probably about a40% higher suicide rate for
correction officers than thereare for just free people that
are not associated with umprison systems.
When you're talking about stufflike that, you have to take care
of your staff.
That's one of our uh verybedrock values.
So um we started the employeessupport team during this
(24:51):
administration, and it wasreally just about trying to make
sure that we had someone to talkto, someone to guide you to
other services, trying to makesure that our staff are our
whole, not just so they can dotheir job, but also so they can
have a good life.
Everybody has a family andresponsibilities outside the
(25:12):
prison, and we don't want themto be in this shape.
I'd like to see the 59 yearsrise, right, to be the same as
people who don't work in prison.
So many different things westarted doing to try to uh get
the health care, mental healthcare for the staff uh up to
scratch.
I think that we have done a lotwith stigma.
(25:35):
Um we never used to talk aboutit before.
Now people are saying that theyneed help.
Um when you're providing allthose services to the
incarcerated people, if you youknow what can happen, right, if
you're getting treatment and youstart to have faith in that if
you've never seen it before andyou start to see up close and
personal the difference it makesfor the incarcerated people, you
(25:56):
know that it works.
Uh, and then you might want touh pursue that for yourself.
But really, this is hard work,and people don't really think
about that.
They think long throw them away,lock them up, and they forget
that there's people theresupervising them and trying to
keep everybody safe.
SPEAKER_01 (26:14):
What can we do in terms of your partners in the
nonprofit world here at OSPF?
And again, we have listenershipfrom other organizations, and
what can we do to partner withyou?
Maybe it's on that volunteerlevel or some other things,
maybe it's bringing in advocacy.
We talk about breaking stigmasall the time in mental health
and suicide prevention.
Um, how can we help?
(26:35):
How can the nonprofit worldhelp?
SPEAKER_03 (26:37):
I think that we do have some really good
partnerships, and of course, wecould always take on more, but
um we're trying to get mantherapy right now.
I don't know if you've heard ofthat before.
Um, thinking about probably 70%of our staff are male.
So it's kind of important thatwe make sure that we're trying
to figure out how to drive themen toward help because the
(27:00):
women are a little bit morewilling, I think.
So anything, um, like like therewas a nonprofit that came and
they were talking about we'd hada traumatic event, and they were
they just take people out intothe woods to camp.
SPEAKER_02 (27:12):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (27:12):
And uh yeah, so we did that, uh, offered that to
some of our staff.
So that's the kind of thing.
And then, you know, like I said,we do have pearl officers and um
they work on task force, so it'snot all just supervision of our
pearlies, but they assist thefederal task force and the local
task force, and they're involvedin shooting.
So we have someone that came tous and was like helping us with
(27:34):
our first responder, um, youknow, witnessing of firearms use
out in the world.
You that's not something you'reexpecting to do if you're not a
police officer, you're notexpecting to see that.
So if you're out there andyou've heard anything I said
that you think, I could helpwith that, or uh, that's in my
swing pattern, we would love foryou to contact us because we're
always trying to figure out howto interact and make our one
(27:58):
team bigger.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Stephanie, you could break some news about man
therapy.
SPEAKER_00 (28:02):
Yes.
When I heard man therapy, um,obviously the music to my ears,
because uh that's one of theprograms here in Ohio that we
lead through the Ohio SuicidePrevention Foundation.
And in fact, we um we as uhseveral people on our staff came
and participated in kind of alistening session among the
(28:25):
corrections officers as well asthe incarcerated people and a
lot of talking about mentalwellness, breaking stigmas,
talking about suicideprevention.
What did you learn as thedirector of the department
during those discussions?
SPEAKER_03 (28:40):
I gotta say, I've been there since 1993, so I
wasn't really having a lot ofrevelations other than a couple
things.
One, I thought to myself, youknow, the incarcerated people,
we pretty much we've got themcovered.
We have a huge mental healthstaff, we refer people to mental
health when we need to likethey've got a lot of care.
(29:02):
Um, however, the staff, youknow, we kind of were like,
well, you have insurance, youhave e employee support through
EAP and things like that, andthat's just not going to be
enough.
And in the past, like I said,the staff don't really talk
about that.
But during the listeningsession, they were just very
forthcoming.
(29:22):
And that is when I was like, weneed man therapy right now.
Um, because I think some of themreally don't express that they
would use the resources that wepoint them at.
But I do think that they woulduse the self-service of man
therapy, and I think it'stailored toward their sort of
culture.
So I'm very excited to get that.
But I I think what I learned wasthere's even more need than I
(29:45):
thought.
And we've been doing a lot, andwe've got them to the point
where they are talking about it,which is great, and where some
of them are seeking services,but now we just need to get more
people connected to the servicesthey need.
But I really Really appreciatethe staff at Chilakothi
Correctional Institution forbeing so forthcoming, for giving
(30:06):
us so much information, andthat's a good jumping off point
for us to do what we're going todo next.
SPEAKER_01 (30:11):
So we have some things to talk about with the
director, Stephanie, after thispodcast when it comes to demand
therapy.
So we've got some stuff tofollow up on.
That's really great.
Let's tee up something that wementioned at the very beginning,
and that is really your nationalfootprint here.
In 2024, you led a nationalgroup to identify 16
determinants of post-releasesuccess, aiming to help prisons
(30:33):
better prepare incarceratedpeople for that successful
integration back to theirrespective communities.
We don't we hopefully you're notthinking, oh boy, I've got to
memorize all 16 here, but giveus the broad strokes of what you
found out and kind of thatnational discussion on this very
topic.
SPEAKER_03 (30:50):
The discussion started because during COVID the
courts shut down.
And because the courts were shutdown, people were not
recidivating back into prison.
And that's the moment that I waslike, okay, recidivism has never
been a great measure.
It's not calculated the samenationally.
And now we have the court shutdown.
So that's artificiallysuppressing it.
What else is there out there?
(31:11):
What how can we do our workbetter?
Or something I was alwayswondering.
So I mentioned that at a meetingof people who do the same work
that I do with the directors ofthe country.
And they were like, okay, BigMouth, you're going to have to
run the committee, right?
So there was probably abouteight to ten states that work
together with our researchpartners and our directors.
And um what we did was we hadour research staff do uh like a
(31:36):
review of everything that's outthere.
What does the science tell us interms of the research, what
works?
And then we said, okay, well,how can we begin to measure and
be accountable for what worksand point ourselves at that
instead of just recidivism?
So things there are things likeeducational access and quality,
(31:57):
healthcare access and quality,neighborhood and the built
environment, social andcommunity context, and economic
stability.
Those are, and to make that moresimple, the the more educated
you are, the less likely you areto return to prison, right?
If your healthcare, includingyour behavioral health care, is
taken care of, you're stable,you're less likely to return to
(32:19):
prison.
So we know these things, andit's 20 years worth of data says
the same thing.
Now we just have tooperationalize it.
So what we started looking atare how can we count these
things and how can we do it in away that might be transportable
across state lines so we can seewho might have a best practice
and you know duplicate that.
So we started uh looking at, forexample, regarding employment,
(32:43):
how many people have a jobwithin the first quarter of
leaving prison, how many peoplehave a job within the first year
of leaving prison, um, whattypes of employment are gonna be
most readily accessible to ourpeople?
Um, I can tell you that I wantto make decisions that I don't
have to wait five years tofigure out if it worked or not.
(33:04):
So when you only measureyourself with recidivism, you
make a change and you're notgonna know really if it had an
impact for quite some time.
But when you're tracking theseother variables, you'll know
pretty quickly if it's workingor not.
So one of the things we lookedat was employment.
And I there was a program, uh,barbering and cosmetology,
right?
And I thought these programshave been around since 1993 and
(33:27):
before.
Do we really need these?
They're not part of Ohio'sin-demand jobs.
Shouldn't we point theseresources at Ohio's in-demand
jobs?
And what we found out was thatyou're more likely to get a job
if you're a cosmetologist or abarber and you get employed
faster and you make more money.
Now, I don't know if they'reworking in their field, but I
can tell you they get employedfaster, they make more money.
(33:49):
So, of course, we're going tokeep those programs.
So that's another thing that'sgood about this, these
determinants is you can look andsee if this is effective and are
we keeping it?
As a director, I'm very pleasedby that.
But anyway, we now know 35.5% ofthe people who leave prison get
a job in the first quarter.
However, 50 point some oddpercent have a job within the
(34:13):
first year.
So essentially, we don't gain onit very much after that first
quarter.
And we release 18,000 people ayear.
And I believe that's theworkforce Ohio needs.
They're trained, uh, we'vevocationally, educationally, uh,
soft skills, working together,teamwork, all that kind of
stuff.
They're ready.
(34:34):
So we need to capture as much ofthat as we can.
Um, we need our batting average,getting these people employed to
be as high as possible.
That's what the LieutenantGovernor Tressel would say.
So we're working on that.
But if you don't never know whatthe number was, you can't impact
it.
If you don't know what programsare making the best success, you
can't impact impact it.
So those are things that we lookat.
(34:54):
And then, of course, educationalattainment.
How many people are in school,how many people are achieving
the education, maximizing thatis another, those are several
different factors we can trackbecause all of the science tells
you the more educated you get,you know, these people aren't
coming back and they're gettingjobs.
You know, employment isdefinitely a keystone to like
being able to be successful.
(35:16):
So, you know, those are thingswe track as well as health care.
If you are on psychotropicmedication and that stabilizes
you and makes you employable,but when you leave, you don't
have access to the insurance youneed, you're gonna be
destabilized quite quickly.
So we made a partnership with umthe Department of Medicaid, and
(35:39):
we actually apply for theirMedicaid for those who are
eligible before they leave.
And uh OSU did a study aboutwhether this is effective or not
and determined that it is indeedeffective, that there's a 14.4%
um lowering of recidivism basedupon having this continuity.
(36:00):
Uh that's pretty big.
That's a big swing.
So keeping people it's kind oflogical anyway, keeping people
attached to their medicationmakes them less likely to
decompensate and fail.
Shocker.
Yeah.
You know, so that's how we aredoing that uh here.
So there's just really factorsthat you would look at.
(36:22):
How many people are housed,right?
I did not know.
We had no idea.
And we were able to determine atleast for the two-thirds of the
population who leave that are onsupervision, 80% of them are
housed.
And that's not institutionallyhoused, that's housed.
That's awesome.
We didn't know how what thenumber was going to be.
(36:43):
We how do you move a number,improve a number, you don't even
want to know what it is.
And then for the other third ofpeople who live in prison, we
don't we don't have a way to getthat yet.
We'll probably do some kind ofsurvey or something because the
parole officers, of course,document what's going on with
their caseload, so we knowwhether they're housed or not.
But now we need to figure outhow to get that information for
(37:03):
the people that aren't uh not onsupervision.
So these are the kinds of thingsthat we now know and we can move
these uh figures.
And also, I think if you'reemployed by the department,
knowing how you yourself, as ateacher with a GED class, are
changing things, um, that justgives you all kinds of like,
(37:25):
let's get up and go to work, youknow what I mean?
You know that you have animpact.
SPEAKER_01 (37:28):
There are all kinds of light bulb moments in this
episode.
Seriously, with all the datathat you're leaning into,
director, you know, it goes backto that adage.
You you can't manage what youdon't track.
Right.
You're tracking a lot, which isreally great.
SPEAKER_03 (37:40):
Some of the information's hard to get.
So of course we startconversations about that.
Um the legislature did pass a uha bill about getting uh birth
certificates and social securitycards and all of those things,
which we are doing.
Uh so getting that stood up is abig deal because when you get
(38:01):
out, how are you gonna get towork if you don't have those
documents, right?
How are you gonna even cash thecheck we give you on your way
out the door uh without beingswept up into the uh money, the
cash lender type stuff, youknow?
These things are differencemakers in terms when you leave.
So um one thing we like to do isre-entry simulations.
(38:23):
So we take people that don'twork in this industry at all,
put them through what isessentially all the things you
have to do when you leave prisonin order to get up and running.
And I've had people say thingslike, Oh my gosh, I'm a social
worker, I've been doing XYZ ortelling people to do this for
years, and now I see that it'snearly impossible.
(38:43):
So we like to do thosesimulations for people so they
can have these light bulbmoments and kind of adjust what
they're doing to work with ourfolks.
Um, because it's easy to say,well, just go over here and uh,
you know, take this class.
Well, okay, they don't have anytransportation.
That class is nowhere near a busline.
You know, these are all thingsthat they don't think about when
they're making these referrals.
(39:04):
But when you get put through there-entry simulation and have to
buy a bus ticket and get to theclass, then you're thinking, oh,
light bulb, right?
So it's just doing work a littledifferently to tilt things
toward the things that scienceand research say work.
SPEAKER_00 (39:21):
So as we start to wrap up our discussion today, we
really want to know about yourmental health and wellness
journey with everything that youhave on your plate and
everything that you are doing tohelp the incarcerated, to help
the staff.
How do you take care of yourmental wellness and practice
(39:45):
self-care?
SPEAKER_03 (39:46):
Um, I'm a little bit more do as I do, do as I say,
not as I do.
Unfortunately, um I can't havethis idea like um I'll take care
of that later.
Or like self-care is a peskynuisance.
It's stopping me from gettingthings done that I want to get
done, sort of.
And um, the whole time I've beendirector, I've been running a
(40:07):
hundred miles an hour because Ifeel like this is a precious
time and this never be able tomake more impact than I can as
Governor DeWine's director.
And we're doing all the greatthings, right?
I wasn't sleeping, I was goingthrough menopause.
My mother uh had to move hereand be taken care of.
I'm the guardian of some of mysiblings, and you know, just a
(40:30):
lot going on personally andprofessionally, and I just hit
the wall and uh ended up reallyended up in the hospital.
And at that point, I was like,okay, this is really too much.
And so I started trying toactually take care of myself,
probably maybe for the firsttime ever.
And what I had to do was takecare of sleep hygiene.
(40:52):
I was probably only sleepingthree or four hours a night.
Oh boy.
For most of my life, actually.
And uh now I'm up to like fiveor six, which doesn't sound like
much to most people, but it'sway more than I was sleeping.
I'm trying, I'm on my way toeight.
I'm not even sure how that'spossible, but I'll keep going.
But I I set some boundariesaround work where I do not let
(41:13):
anyone schedule a meeting withme before nine.
Now I can choose to do that, butlike say my assistant cannot.
And because I I need time toanswer my emails and do the
other stuff, right?
If I'm in meetings every minute.
So I come in and I can spendthose time before nine o'clock
doing the things I need to getdone.
And then you I wasn't evengetting lunch.
(41:34):
Uh so blocking out some time inthe middle of the day to eat,
and then the last boundary I putin place at work was you can't
schedule a meeting to start withme after 4 p.m.
unless I say so again.
So this keeps things in aframework where I have time in
the beginning of the day, theend of the day, in the middle of
the day to do all those thingsthat no one thinks take any
(41:56):
time.
SPEAKER_02 (41:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (41:57):
Uh so I don't have to take all as much home with
me, right?
I mean, I think I used to paintand swim and do all kinds of
things.
And when I became director, Istarted pushing healthcare for
everybody else and left mineflapping in the breeze.
So, you know, boundaries, sleephygiene, and um, I did seek the
(42:18):
help of professionals, and I'mnot ashamed to say that.
Absolutely.
So I talk about that with mystaff now because I want them to
do the same.
And now I model it, I don't justtalk about it.
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
I remember hearing, and this is very recent, I heard
um OSU president Ted Carter,who, you know, before he got
into academia, he was a fighterpilot and long distinguished
career in the military, but hesays that he calls good sleep a
weapons grade advantage, and hereally leans into that.
SPEAKER_03 (42:50):
You know, he's so right, because you're just like
running through molasses if youhaven't slept enough.
Your body doesn't have enoughtime to heal itself.
Um, it's funny because I lost asignificant amount of weight and
people keep saying, Oh, how didyou do that?
And I was like, Yeah, I slept.
Isn't that crazy?
The body's recovering.
Yeah, right.
Yes, right.
SPEAKER_00 (43:10):
Yeah.
Taking care of yourself mentallyand physically is so important.
SPEAKER_03 (43:13):
And you know, it could be something other than
just go to bed early.
So I well, 9:30, I don't dealwith any um television and stuff
like that anymore.
And then I have a ritual and Isay it's very important to wash
your face.
Now I don't wear makeup, butstill you're it's self-care,
right?
It's that little moment to thatyou get for yourself, and um
(43:35):
that's part of the ritual of megoing to sleep, whatever.
And then um I try to be asleepby between 10 and 11.
I was staying awake till liketwo in the morning, reading,
researching, and like, come onnow.
Like, when are you gonna sleep?
And I found out also that youknow, I needed hormone
(43:56):
replacement therapy.
So I was waking up in the middleof the night only because of
that.
So sometimes you might need touh really start to try to sleep
and then figure out that, hey,you need some help doing that.
Um, and in my case, menopausewas not my friend.
And I need I absolutely neededhormone replacement therapy,
which was then I got to sleepthrough the night, right?
(44:16):
If you wake up at three in themorning, are you gonna go back
to sleep or are you gonna dostuff?
Well, in my case, it's do stuffbecause I can't just imagine
laying in bed.
So if I woke up at like four,I'd just be up for the rest of
the day.
And now I sleep because I'm nothaving those disruptions due to
hormonal changes at night.
So it's not all just abouttrying to lay down.
It's about you might have otherissues you need to work on, you
(44:39):
know, physically.
So all that together has reallybeen a one-year journey for me.
And it's been great.
SPEAKER_00 (44:49):
Well, first of all, we really appreciate you being
open and talking about the thechallenges that you've had and
how you've been able to workthrough those.
So we really appreciate youbeing open about that.
And thank you so much forjoining us today, Director
Annette Chambers Smith, and yourdedicated public service.
We are really very proud to callyou one of our partners here at
(45:12):
the Ohio Suicide PreventionFoundation.
Thank you.
And to you art listeners, thankyou as well.
When you listen to our episodes,you break stigmas, break
barriers, and you care aboutmental health and saving lives.
This is Voices for SuicidePrevention, brought to you by
the Ohio Suicide PreventionFoundation.
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