From Local to National: Lettisha Boyd's Journey from Academic Counselor to Helping Institutions THRIVE
As an Academic Counselor, Lettisha Boyd saw the same challenges come up time and time again for our students. ” At school, their academic advisors were giving them the wrong information relating to college majors and careers once they self-disclosed. So many of them thought they couldn’t follow their career goals because of misinformation from the people meant to guide them.” To remedy this, counselors in the Academic Support Program, began deepening our relationships with current partners while developing new ones with colleges and parole offices to help students navigate the barriers they experience at the institutional level.
“Building trust with academic advisors and parole officers helped give our students the confidence to advocate for themselves,” Lettisha says.
In 2016, building from the informal technical assistance that Lettisha regularly provided to staff at other institutions, CCF launched the THRIVE Technical Assistance Program. THRIVE trains institutions that want to strengthen their service delivery to criminal justice-affected people (like colleges, reentry organizations, and parole and probation offices) as well as employers and HR departments that want to make their workplaces more inclusive.
All of the strategies that Lettisha had used as Academic Counselor at CCF became the core building blocks for THRIVE with Lettisha leading and developing this new program. Working with experts in the field, Lettisha wrote the THRIVE curriculum from scratch. Based on CCF’s success using evidence-based and promising practices, the THRIVE curriculum trains staff to understand the challenges people face when coming home from prison and how to mitigate those challenges to provide the best support.
In 2019, THRIVE was evaluated by the Joyfields Institute, an expert in evidence-based practices. The evaluation found that the THRIVE curriculum effectively uses existing research, empirical assessment, and data-driven decision-making to enhance client success, improve staff performance, and promote a culture of learning and collaboration. But research wasn’t the only crucial element to the program. In developing the training, Lettisha made sure that the heart of THRIVE was always grounded in real experiences and challenges in working with CCF’s hardworking students in New York.
Today, Lettisha has trained over 300 staff across thirteen sites in six states. That includes four colleges, six community-based organizations, two employers, and parole and legal resource officers across the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
“Some moments of training have been so moving,” Lettisha recounts. “Immediately after training Hostos Community College, they made our career guide available for students at their career advisement office, and placed it on their website. And they’re doing ongoing professional development for staff about laws and protections for CJ-affected people so that no student is discouraged from following a career pathway they think they’re banned from pursuing.”
Another moment that stands out for Lettisha is the training at North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
Lettisha recalls, “I was expecting the probation officers to have adverse reactions to being put in THRIVE training. But I watched the group grapple with new ideas, like humanizing language and drawing their own conclusions from the research about the connection to trauma and incarceration. Watching them during the trainings retrain their brains by practicing calling people justice involved or just people, something that they were not used - that really made me realize how big of an impact this program could have.”
So, what’s next for THRIVE? “ Lettisha says. “I want to see more incarcerated people better prepared for their transition home. I want to see more people employed in careers so they can find financial stability. That’s what THRIVE is ultimately about - supporting the successful reintegration of criminal justice-impacted people.”
Is your organization, college, or workplace interested in helping support the successful reintegration of CJ-impacted people? Click here to learn more about the THRIVE Technical Assistance Program and begin exploring a partnership with us!