Redefining The R in PERMA-V

Resiliency Is at the Root for Those Incarcerated or Detained.

Summary:

I often get called on to provide a Counsel to those headed into incarceration and the family with the process of simply providing a safe space with which to discuss their fears and worries of a loved one facing serious charges and the potential impacts of incarceration.

What I have found the most relevant of my advisorship and the feedback to counsel is the idea of RESILENCY for the client and family.

From the one facing charges: "how do I navigate this new roadmap and how can I survive this"? From the Family too are the same: "How do we process and survive as well as support our loved one during this process and make sense of it all"?

While I utilize the PERMA-V model, I have found in the course of incarceration challenges for clients, what can I do as a provider? To focus on the situation at hand? Or, instead to bring out and discuss how to SURVIVE and what skills are innate in a client and concurrently the family to bolster their loved one during this process. It is the latter.

Detention or Prison is about the removal from all forms of a "normal society". The environment of Prisons and Detention Centers is catastrophic to those suffering mental health, substance use disorders, and many "decompensate" into potentially permanent levels while trying to make sense of the criminal process at hand. This while trying to come off street drugs, addictions, histories of mental health and a myriad of other justice involved issues. All the while navigating for the Family the issues at hand for their loved one.

I instead choose to focus on the family, through the advising attorney with regards to RESILIENCE. This doesn't mean overtly changing the R in the model, it means updating it to reflect self-determination and self-direction through processing trauma, talking about it sharing as well, arriving at a preservation of oneself. In other words, Surviving and how to continue to do so regarding the situation at hand. In concert with support from others. (My Notes)

How can we both solve the issue of the situation and hand, as well have a conversation regarding the loved one and family. What are your shared Strengths? What is your shared grief? What can we do to mitigate and support?

This dataset provides the Defense Attorney with a view of the Client that cannot be afforded by regular interactions in the traditional sense. An "advocate" is one who works in concert with the Attorney and Family, and that is what I do.

I Practice and encourage Resilience as part of my Advisorship. Focus on the strengths and let us discuss the fears and worries in Confidence. Lovingly but also supportively.

This I have found to be a fine course of Guidance to clients who have been referred.

The R is MODEL. But let us rethink and reapply it to the Criminal Justice System.

I welcome feedback and thoughts.