June 2022 Newsletter
The PGP welcomes a new ACLS Fellow
We’re delighted to announce that the PGP has been selected to host an ACLS Leading Edge Fellow for the second time. Keziah Poole will join the PGP for a two-year fellowship in September, when we say goodbye to current ACLS Fellow and College Bridge Program Coordinator Tara Hottman. The ACLS Fellow supports the implementation, evaluation, and expansion of the PGP’s College Bridge Program at the D.C. Jail.
Keziah holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Japanese from the University of Leeds and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California, where she taught in the USC Dornsife Prison Education Project. In 2021, Keziah founded the USC PEP Readers’ Circle, a peer-editing program that pairs writers in custody with faculty and students. She has previously led courses in college composition, creative writing and literature, French, and gender studies.
We’re building a PGP alumni network
Since the Petey Greene Program was founded in 2008, we have worked with over 3,200 volunteer tutors and more than 16,000 students—that’s a LOT of folks! We consider you a PGP alum If you’ve previously volunteered but are no longer tutoring with us, or if you were tutored by the PGP but are no longer receiving tutoring.
We're building an alumni network to help us stay in touch with you, create opportunities to connect with the PGP and with other alumni, and work together to get the word out about the PGP. We hope to launch the network sometime in 2023, and in the meantime, you can help by telling us what you’re up to and by sharing our survey with other former volunteers and students who might not receive this newsletter.
The survey will only take about 5 minutes to complete, and as our thanks, we’ll send you our brand new PGP sticker so you can share the PGP pride.
Expanding Youth Tutoring Services in Massachusetts: An Opportunity to Break the Cycle of Incarceration
The Petey Greene Program is excited to be expanding its partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) to reach all the youth-serving facilities operating in the state. The PGP currently provides volunteer tutors in 17 DYS facilities. Under the new contract, we will ultimately reach youth in all 36 DYS facilities in the state, serving over 200 youth between the ages of 12 and 21.
For Lynne Sullivan, the PGP’s Regional Manager in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the work is deeply personal. “I know what it's like to be caught up in the system at a young age. These young people are at a turning point in their lives; they may be suffering from trauma or may be disconnected from family, but we can support them by providing access to education and the caring human connection every young person needs.”
Lynne has worked tirelessly to build the partnership between the PGP and the Collaborative for Educational Services, which provides educational programming in all DYS facilities. She and her team are expanding the PGP’s recruitment efforts at colleges and universities across the state to support this partnership. Historically, most PGP volunteers in Massachusetts have been drawn from institutions in the eastern part of the state, typically Tufts, Harvard, Clark, and Boston Universities. In order to bring tutors to DYS facilities located all across the state, the MA and RI team is expanding the PGP’s presence to colleges we haven’t partnered with before, including Holyoke Community College in the central region, Merrimack College in the north, and Bridgewater State College in the south.
“We couldn’t be more pleased with our Petey Greene Program partnership. The tutors have been very well-received by youth and adults alike and are highly effective at what they do," says Woody Clift, Director of the DYS Education Initiative at the Collaborative for Educational Services. "We look forward to further expanding this service to any and all youth, be they in high school or graduates taking post secondary classes," Woody continues. "Youth seem to really appreciate the individualized support, and having tutors available means that teachers are more able to personalize educational programming in a class of multi-grade level learners with complex academic and social-emotional backgrounds.”
Many of the young people who find themselves in the juvenile justice system have experienced the incarceration of a parent and are at risk for becoming incarcerated as adults themselves. That’s why Lynne is so passionate about working with youth. “I want to keep these kids out of prison, and education and human contact are essential to make that happen. Having someone who believes in you who's not a part of the system—who is part of the outside world—having them come in and say ‘I believe in you, you can do this’ can make all the difference in a young person’s life. I have been blessed to have people there for my daughter when I was incarcerated, and today I am there for my godson. We all need someone to care to break the generational patterns. It makes a world of difference in a young person’s life.”
“I really like school now”: Nora Gilleo unlocks her love of learning with support from a PGP tutor
Nora Gilleo loves school, but that hasn’t always been true. An undiagnosed learning disability meant that, for most of her life, Nora believed teachers and others who said she wasn’t smart. Although the learning disability was eventually diagnosed when Nora was in high school, the damage had been done. After high school, Nora enrolled in college in her home state of Rhode Island, but she struggled academically and soon dropped out. Two decades later, Nora is picking up the threads of her educational journey. This time, her experience is completely different: Nora is working with Ying Huang, a Petey Greene Program tutor who supports her every step of the way. “Ying is amazing,” Nora says; “Having the support of a tutor has given me the confidence to go in and take the class, take the test; it’s much different than taking a class without a tutor; I’ve done that—and it’s hard.”
Nora connected with the PGP through our partnership with Rhode Island-based Reentry Campus Program, which provides incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people with an affordable pathway to accredited post-secondary education and certification programs that are infused within the reentry process. The PGP provides volunteer tutors from Brown University, who support students enrolled in degree programs at Roger Williams University.
After completing her associate’s degree in 2023, Nora plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a doctorate in occupational therapy. She’s mapped out her journey, which she expects she’ll complete in 2028. Looking forward to six more years of postsecondary education isn’t something Nora could have imagined during her decades’ long struggle with active addiction. “My confidence was zero; I’m not smart--that’s how I felt for a long time.”
But as part of her recovery process, Nora found the strength to say “I’m not dumb. I have a disability and this is how we’re going to work with it.” Knowing that Ying is there gives Nora the confidence she needs to tackle challenging coursework. “Having Ying in the background gives me confidence; Knowing that I can talk to Ying on Monday and that she’ll help me understand the material is a big support.”
The moral support Ying provides is at least as important as the academic support. “Being 40 and going back to school is scary,” Nora confides. “Working with the tutor gave me so much confidence…She’s really good at coaching; she’s my cheerleader, and that was even more helpful than her explaining the material.”
Decades of active addiction have taken their toll on Nora’s relationships with her family, but she’s working on repairing those relationships, and she says, “my children are my biggest supporters.” Her success in school is inspiring her children: one son has just enrolled in a GED program; another wants to go back to college, and the youngest, 13, helps her study. “I feel like I’m finally doing my job as a mother; being able to inspire my children like this has been phenomenal; it’s a different way of being a mom” Nora says.
Nora and Ying have been working together since February. They meet weekly on Zoom to accommodate Nora’s busy schedule. “Meeting on Zoom isn’t the same as meeting in person,” Nora explains, “but it’s what you make of it. Ying is a really great person, and I look forward to our Monday meetings.” Nora will continue working with Ying through the summer, when she’s taking developmental psychology, and she hopes to be paired with a second tutor when she tackles Spanish next semester. Knowing that the PGP’s tutoring support is available makes all the difference as she contemplates the educational journey she has laid out for herself: “I didn't expect to have such support when I started taking college classes, but the support I’ve gotten from the PGP is out of this world. I’ve never been excited about school before, but I actually really like it now.”
