Studer Community Institute

Bridging the parts of broken lives

June 21, 2015
/ Louis Cooper
/ training-development

Will Shumate knows he's a lucky man. By rights, he could be sitting in a state prison cell today serving time for a string of drug-related felonies. Instead, he's married with a child, has a good job and recently celebrated five years being drug-free. He says the difference came through the opportunities afforded by the Pathways for Change program — a therapeutic community treatment program that allows offenders with substance abuse-related charges to redirect their lives instead of going to prison. Pathways is celebrating 10 years of service this year. It also now includes Everything Outdoors, a lawn and landscaping service run by Pensacola's Pathways For Change graduates and current participants, offers a path to employment and better prospects for the future. "I would be in prison or dead is the reality of where I would be," said Shumate, now 25, who entered Pathways in October 2010. "Pathways is the foundation for my recovery. They are what made it all start." In the 10 years of its operation, 300 men have entered Pathways for Change, although not all have completed it. It enjoys the support of the law enforcement community. It is funded through public money along with fundraising and private grants. And it is both cheaper and more effective than traditional incarceration. Assistant State Attorney John Molchan said Pathways is a good alternative to prison that gives offenders options other than returning to a life of crime. "When we send someone to state prison, they simply end up going back to the same place they were afterward, to be with the same people they were with before,” Molchan said. “Pathways for Change can be a huge help in stopping these individuals from reoffending." 'Tragic, traumatic beginnings' Adam Harrell, 31, graduated from Pathways for Change in early 2014. He would still be in the middle of prison sentence were it not for Pathways. "If I were in prison right now, I'd just be getting better trained on stuff I'd need to do as a criminal to survive," Harrell said. "Pathways taught me stuff I need to do as a citizen in a thriving community to survive. Pathways taught me how to be a productive member of society." Pathways for Change is intended to help each man reach a potential he may never have known he had, according to Connie Bookman, who founded the program a decade ago. "Many of our clients come from tragic, traumatic beginnings with little healthy support from a parent," Bookman said. "They don’t value their importance because they have been told they would never amount to anything. It takes quite a while to convince them otherwise. The Men's Residential Treatment program is structured in a way that clients can work hard and achieve success, which naturally builds their self-esteem." Bookman previously worked with inmates in the Escambia County Jail and was "overwhelmed with the massive issues that needed to be addressed ... I knew we had to do more than teach a few classes and offer counseling." So, she sought a more comprehensive approach through a treatment model called a Therapeutic Community. The model views substance abuse a symptom of much broader problems and, in a residential setting, uses a holistic treatment approach that has an impact on every aspect of a resident's life, Bookman said. "In our Therapeutic Community, job functions, chores and other facility management responsibilities help maintain the daily operations of the Therapeutic Community and are used as a vehicle for teaching self-development,” she said. “Remaining physically separated from external influences strengthens the sense of community that is integral to the residential setting." To bring the Therapeutic Community to Pensacola, Bookman volunteered for some real-world experience. She paid $1,000 to enter the Therapeutic Community at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in 2004 to learn about this successful mode of treatment. "There were 3,000 inmates on that campus, and 150 were located in the Therapeutic Community where I spent my days, working alongside the inmate clients, learning the structure," she said. "My husband made sure I had a hotel to return to in the evenings. I came back from that experience, wrote the manuals for Pathways for Change and launched it, along with an incredible team, in February of 2005.” Harrell said Pathways Therapeutic Community treatment model helped him where other programs had failed. "That was my third treatment program, but something about that program did something those others couldn't do. It kept me clean,” he said. “I spent a lot of my teens and early 20s in and out of prison. I never learned anything." He felt like the people who ran the Pathways program could identify with him. "A lot of the other programs I went to were just people who wanted to help. It wasn't necessarily people who had been where I had been," he said "At Pathways, one of the guys who runs it is a recovering alcoholic. Another individual is an ex-convict and he's in recovery. They were able to identify with my situation.” How it works To enter Pathways for Change, clients must be nonviolent adult offenders with substance abuse issues. They must also be willing to participate in a faith-based program and pass medical, mental and security screenings. Pathways in divided into six phases, with each lasting three months. In Phases 1 and 2 clients cannot leave the dorm. The majority of the program's 27 classes are taken during those six months. In Phase 3, clients do community service three days a week and are in classes three days. This allows the staff to see how they react to a bit of freedom. In Phase 4, clients leave the dorm daily for work or school. During this time they may start paying off fines, restitution or child support and start saving for their future. Phase 4 is broken into three sub-phases, each one allowing more freedom, including more home visits. In the last of Phase 4, clients may live at home but must report to Pathways staff several times a week. During this time, clients are drug screened and must turn in financial reports so the staff knows they are paying their debts and spending wisely. Pathways is a faith-based program, with 25 percent of the curriculum reflecting a faith in God. [caption id="attachment_23126" align="aligncenter" width="960"]

From left, Adam Harrell, Chris Collins, chief operating officer, and Robert Thomas with the Pathways for change Everything Outdoors lawn and maintenance service. Michael Spooneybarger/ Pensacola Today[/caption] "We understand that everyone’s relationship with God is personal, so we don’t require them to believe in a certain way," Bookman said. "We want them exposed to courses such as 'Growing Strong in God’s Family,' 'The Purpose Driven Life,' 'Every Man’s Battle,' etc., so they can make a decision on whether they want to be a Christian." Pathways clients are also required to participate in 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous in hopes that they will continue working on their recovery after they leave. "AA and NA are the most successful recovery models out there," Bookman said. "While they are not the answer to all of our clients’ problems, they offer long-term support, fellowship and healing for clients once they leave Pathways for Change." Pathways for Change began in a dorm within the Escambia County Jail, with a capacity of seven clients, but it soon moved to the nearby Escambia County Work Release Center. There, the program has funding for 27 clients at any given time. At any time, if a Pathways client falters, he can be sent back to an earlier phase of the program. He also may be sent to complete his original sentence in state prison. Challenging program For Shumate, the decision to join Pathways was not an easy one. When his attorney first recommended it, it didn't appeal to him. "I didn't want anything to do with it, to be blunt. I didn't want to go there," he said. "I was going to take a five-year plea in prison but my family and my attorney convinced me." When he got into the program, it turned out to be a bigger challenge than he anticipated. "When I went into Pathways for Change, I wasn't ready to stop using," he said. He was consumed with ego, he said, but the program helped tamp that down. "They have this group on Fridays at Pathways for Change called 'encounter group,' where they call you (out)," Shumate said. "Everybody in the room called me (out), and I realized I was broken. I was very materialistic. I was very narcissistic and really arrogant. I had to learn how to deal with that because I couldn't leave. Those were pretty big hurdles." Successful and efficient Pathways boasts a 70 percent success rate, meaning 70 percent of Pathways clients do not reoffend. That's much better than the 32 percent of offenders who spend their sentences in prison or jail who never reoffend. Local law enforcement sings the praises of Pathways for Change. Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said it stops "the revolving door" of criminal life. "Pathways is a unique program, for it fills in the gaps and creates a bridge for the parts of a broken life," Morgan said. "It’s success, I believe, stems from its continuous care on a very personal level. So many of its clients have never known what family is or means and Pathways fills that void. Someone, for the first time their lives, really cares.” In addition to generating better results than traditional incarceration, Pathways is less costly. Keeping a client in Pathways cost $40 per day. Being incarcerated in the county jail cost about $70 per day and a state prison stay costs about $120 per day. Pathways operates on a budget of about $629,000. Of that, 36 percent comes from private foundations, while the Escambia County Commission provides 23 percent. The rest comes from fundraising, community and corporate donations and other sources. For Shumate and Harrell — both of whom have continued participating in 12-step groups since they left Pathways — the program truly turned their lives around. Shumate is married with a young son. Harrell is engaged to be married later this year to a young woman who is also in recovery. "It got me out of my convict mentality, which was, 'Don't tell, and if you see something, look the other way,’" said Harrell. "I don't go around looking for somebody to tell on these days, but if I see something that is going to be potentially damaging somebody I care about, I call them out on it. In that sense, I am more aware of my own behaviors and actions." Shumate said his life has only gotten better. "I have a career in the food industry," he said. "I am the general manager at a pretty successful business. We do OK. We more than make ends meet. I feed my family. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. She takes care of my son, and I take care of them."

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