RISE helps recidivism rate at the Valencia County Detention Center

Using a combination of therapy and teaching real-life skills, a program at the Valencia County Detention Center is working to lower the recidivism rate of inmates.

VCDC is one of 14 county jails across New Mexico participating in the RISE — Reach, Intervene, Support and Engage — program, which was launched in 2019 to address the scarcity of behavioral health services in county jails and detention centers across the state.

“The program is based on mental health. The whole point is to lower the recidivism rate (the tendency of a convicted criminal to re-offend) by addressing their mental health and how they are going to do when they get out of jail,” said Sarah Flores, the MAT (Medication Assisted Treatment) re-entry specialist for VCDC. “Everyone is going to mess up; everyone is human. The ones that do come back, I get to help them even more. They weren’t really ready.”

The RISE program at the Valencia County jail partners with Full Circle Recovery Center, a Los Lunas-based intensive outpatient program and general behavioral/mental health clinic, to provide one-on-one counseling for clients with drug or alcohol addiction and mental health issues.

Clients meet with a RISE counselor twice a week and they see RISE program manager Mia Vann once a week for sessions in journaling, art and music therapy and meditation classes.

The program helps inmates create a release plan they can work on while still in custody, so they can develop the tools and resources to help them be successful once released.

Vann helps clients apply for important paperwork like a Social Security card and birth certificates, if they need, apply for Medicaid, find and apply for jobs, create resumes and locate housing. She and Flores work closely with rehab and treatment centers and shelters in the area.

The local RISE program touts a success rate of 90 percent and higher, seeing very few inmates leave the program and re-offend.

Flores works with Vann to help inmates address their mental health concerns as well as give them practical life skills, such as basic cooking and nutrition knowledge.

“I’m going to start a cooking class with them, showing them how to measure things out, the nutrition part,” Vann said. “That’s preparing them for the outside world.”

Funded by a state grant, the program helps inmates with a dual diagnosis — mental health and substance misuse — “and through their therapy, acknowledge what they’re going through. That helps them start to address their addictions,” Flores said

She continued, saying what Vann brings to the table is her ability to help inmates learn those basic skills, but also how to focus on their own self care.

“Some people might look at this and say, ‘Oh, it’s just coloring,’ but to the inmates, they’re learning how to have that self care work; for that hour, the world goes away,” she said. “It gives them something to be proud of and they can be themselves, especially the men.

“Men typically don’t get to be kind, especially not to themselves.”

In therapy, RISE clients learn how to focus on themselves and their challenges, but to also acknowledge they’ve taken away from society and their families, Flores said.

“We help them realize it’s about giving back,” she said. “They are going off what they were taught as children. It’s generational. There are all these things they’re dealing with and, when you teach them they can get help, they can overcome, you get to see the people they were meant to be.”

One way the clients in the RISE program gave back to the community was by making and donating more than 2,000 luminaries to local churches last Christmas, a project the inmates were very excited to undertake, Flores said.

Both Flores and Vann have worked in corrections for more than a decade and reflected on how when they began their careers, the industry was very much focused on the punitive aspect in incarceration, an attitude that has changed over the decades.

“My dad was a huge advocate for anyone incarcerated and that’s where my passion came from,” Vann said. “We need programs, we need to be more therapeutic. We’re able to now offer these programs inside of facilities and it changes the whole aspect of your facility.

“If you plant a seed, it might not grow right away but it’s going to grow eventually.”

Flores said they do see those seeds grow when RISE clients take their work back to their pods and draw the interest of their fellow inmates.

“It’s wonderful to see the world become more therapeutic inside of the facilities,” she said. “There are people we’re changing in our community. We’re not doing this to change the world. We’re going to help our community.”

One unique aspect of the VCDC RISE program is its “care backpack” program, which provides inmates experiencing homelessness with a backpack with basic toiletries, a towel and a few other essentials when they’re released.

“It’s just a little something they can have when they get out, because it’s hard enough,” Flores said. “It’s not much but we’re proud of it.”

The key thing Flores wants the community to know is that she and Vann and the VCDC staff are working to help people change.

“So, when they get out, they’re able to get a job and do something productive,” she said. “I want people to know what we’re doing here so they are more accepting of our clients when they get out because that’s how they’ll be successful.”