`One day, a few years after his release from MCI Norfolk prison, and well into his work as TPP’s Director of Outreach, Bobby Iacoviello started experiencing symptoms of a panic attack. “My stomach was just killing me, and I couldn’t breathe very well,” he said. “I could tell something was really wrong.” Iacoviello spends his days connecting returning men and women to resources that will smooth their reentry. The work leaves him little time to focus on his own well-being. “I tend to brush things off,” he said, “but this time was different.”
Fortunately, he had someone to call. Sarah Coughlin, a licensed social worker and one of TPP’s three “wellness guides” arrived at his apartment within an hour. “She just sat with me and listened,” he said, “and she stayed until I was feeling better.” Before leaving she convinced him to see a doctor and even set up an appointment for him. “It was huge,” Iacoviello said. “I don’t think I could find any [traditional] mental health professional who would do that.”
TPP’s Center for Wellness and Restoration was set up to meet the needs of formerly incarcerated individuals. The Center’s three clinicians (or “wellness guides”) have extensive experience working with system-involved youth and adults, inside and outside of prisons, and are deeply familiar with the distinct types of trauma and adjustment challenges stemming from long-term incarceration. “Sometimes, especially in the early stages of reentry, clients may need to meet multiple times a week, or they may need to call someone in the middle of the night. There is so much that is overwhelming” Coughlin said. “Having someone there, who gets it, who won’t pathologize them, is critical.” (In addition to mental health counseling, the Center provides a range of services, including case management, clinical evaluations, legal advocacy, and reentry support.)
Iacoviello’s time in the DOC made him deeply distrustful of the mental health profession. “When I got locked up at 20, I realized quickly that when you talk to a mental health professional, everything is documented and can be used against you in a disciplinary report or at a later parole hearing. COs could learn about it and spread it to prisoners. Confidentiality doesn’t exist,” he said. The threat of being placed on suicide watch (stripped naked and put in a ‘turtle suit’) also discourages people from seeking mental health care in prison. “You can’t say you just need to talk to somebody,” Iacoviello said. “I tried that once. They immediately want to know if you’re thinking about killing yourself” he said. “If not, it’s like they’re not going to waste resources on you.”
Fortunately, he had someone to call. Sarah Coughlin, a licensed social worker and one of TPP’s three “wellness guides” arrived at his apartment within an hour. “She just sat with me and listened,” he said, “and she stayed until I was feeling better.” Before leaving she convinced him to see a doctor and even set up an appointment for him. “It was huge,” Iacoviello said. “I don’t think I could find any [traditional] mental health professional who would do that.”
TPP’s Center for Wellness and Restoration was set up to meet the needs of formerly incarcerated individuals. The Center’s three clinicians (or “wellness guides”) have extensive experience working with system-involved youth and adults, inside and outside of prisons, and are deeply familiar with the distinct types of trauma and adjustment challenges stemming from long-term incarceration. “Sometimes, especially in the early stages of reentry, clients may need to meet multiple times a week, or they may need to call someone in the middle of the night. There is so much that is overwhelming” Coughlin said. “Having someone there, who gets it, who won’t pathologize them, is critical.” (In addition to mental health counseling, the Center provides a range of services, including case management, clinical evaluations, legal advocacy, and reentry support.)
Iacoviello’s time in the DOC made him deeply distrustful of the mental health profession. “When I got locked up at 20, I realized quickly that when you talk to a mental health professional, everything is documented and can be used against you in a disciplinary report or at a later parole hearing. COs could learn about it and spread it to prisoners. Confidentiality doesn’t exist,” he said. The threat of being placed on suicide watch (stripped naked and put in a ‘turtle suit’) also discourages people from seeking mental health care in prison. “You can’t say you just need to talk to somebody,” Iacoviello said. “I tried that once. They immediately want to know if you’re thinking about killing yourself” he said. “If not, it’s like they’re not going to waste resources on you.”
When he got home, Iacoviello agreed to see a therapist at his family’s urging. But as soon as he sat down and started talking, he realized the clinician had no background information on him. She was shocked when he told her he’d been locked up for 12 years. “I had barely scratched the surface of what I’d been through, when she quickly diagnosed me with PTSD,” he said. “She did nothing wrong. It was just clear that nothing in her training had prepared her for my case.” When Covid hit, they stopped meeting.
For many men and women exiting prison, mental health and substance use treatment are mandated terms of their parole or probation. Yet, unfortunately, the care providers available through state insurance lack the experience and education needed to understand the psychological, social, and emotional impacts of long-term incarceration.
According to TPP’s Executive director, Armand Coleman, this disconnect can jeopardize the success of returning citizens, especially youthful offenders, like himself, who “grew up in prison, thinking for a long time we were never coming home.” When the Massachusetts law changed in 2013, granting “juvenile lifers” the chance at parole, Coleman was afforded a mental health counselor and a social worker with expertise in incarceration to help him prepare for parole. “Along with restorative justice, those were the most important supports I had,” he said. But once he was released, the funding for those providers disappeared. “I no longer had the people who best knew what I’d been through and where I was striving to go.” (The clinician assigned to Coleman in the early months of his reentry discouraged him from pursuing his vision for TPP, advising him instead to “get a real job” in construction or food service. “It was incredibly disheartening,” he said.)
Coleman envisioned the Center as a way to provide a continuum of care for men and women who, having begun to transform and heal themselves behind the wall, must now learn to navigate the world outside, often as adults for the first time. “The goal shouldn’t be just to get out of prison, but to stay out,” Coleman said. “We’ve hired clinicians who understand the environment of prison, and [who] get the types of issues people are dealing with, especially when adulthood and freedom have suddenly been sprung upon them.”
In addition to one-on-one counseling, the Center offers mental health groups—virtually and in person—based on a restorative model. Wellness guides have gone through TPP’s “phase training” and become experienced circle facilitators. “We recognize that healing takes place in the community,” Coughlin said. “The groups allow people to share many of the difficult emotions that come with reentry and to process the traumas of incarceration with others who have been down the same path.” “We bring up issues in a group setting that don’t get talked about…trauma and abuse and the things that happened to us when we were locked up,” Iacoviello said.
“We want to break the barrier that keeps these topics behind closed doors. Because we’ve all been through difficult things in our lives and there should be no shame in it."
For many men and women exiting prison, mental health and substance use treatment are mandated terms of their parole or probation. Yet, unfortunately, the care providers available through state insurance lack the experience and education needed to understand the psychological, social, and emotional impacts of long-term incarceration.
According to TPP’s Executive director, Armand Coleman, this disconnect can jeopardize the success of returning citizens, especially youthful offenders, like himself, who “grew up in prison, thinking for a long time we were never coming home.” When the Massachusetts law changed in 2013, granting “juvenile lifers” the chance at parole, Coleman was afforded a mental health counselor and a social worker with expertise in incarceration to help him prepare for parole. “Along with restorative justice, those were the most important supports I had,” he said. But once he was released, the funding for those providers disappeared. “I no longer had the people who best knew what I’d been through and where I was striving to go.” (The clinician assigned to Coleman in the early months of his reentry discouraged him from pursuing his vision for TPP, advising him instead to “get a real job” in construction or food service. “It was incredibly disheartening,” he said.)
Coleman envisioned the Center as a way to provide a continuum of care for men and women who, having begun to transform and heal themselves behind the wall, must now learn to navigate the world outside, often as adults for the first time. “The goal shouldn’t be just to get out of prison, but to stay out,” Coleman said. “We’ve hired clinicians who understand the environment of prison, and [who] get the types of issues people are dealing with, especially when adulthood and freedom have suddenly been sprung upon them.”
In addition to one-on-one counseling, the Center offers mental health groups—virtually and in person—based on a restorative model. Wellness guides have gone through TPP’s “phase training” and become experienced circle facilitators. “We recognize that healing takes place in the community,” Coughlin said. “The groups allow people to share many of the difficult emotions that come with reentry and to process the traumas of incarceration with others who have been down the same path.” “We bring up issues in a group setting that don’t get talked about…trauma and abuse and the things that happened to us when we were locked up,” Iacoviello said.
“We want to break the barrier that keeps these topics behind closed doors. Because we’ve all been through difficult things in our lives and there should be no shame in it."