Consulting Services Trainings and Professional Development
The Petey Greene Program has more than fifteen years of experience providing academic support services for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated learners. Building on this experience, we help other organizations, companies, and universities develop systems, learning opportunities, and tools to advance educational justice inside and outside carceral spaces. We partner with colleges, universities, and community organizations to offer trainings for instructors and staff, on subjects ranging from the carceral state and educational justice to trauma-informed pedagogy in carceral spaces.
Training Options
The Carceral State & Educational Justice
Participants learn about the carceral state, the set of interlocking institutions, logics, and practices that produce mass incarceration and other forms of punitive control. This helps participants understand the broader contexts of the carceral state that produce the need for educational justice. Participants learn how the carceral state framework shapes our approach to educational justice and how they can participate in the larger movement to support freedom dreams of currently and formerly incarcerated people.
Education in Carceral & Reentry Spaces
Participants learn about the challenges faced by currently and formerly incarcerated people and how this might impact students' pursuit of education during class sessions. Participants discuss how to support currently and formerly incarcerated students during class sessions and the role of education in carceral and reentry spaces.
Unconscious Biases and Strength-Based Support in Carceral and Reentry Spaces
This training guides participants to examine what it means to be an ethical educator in carceral reentry spaces, including being aware of unconscious bias and how to conduct healthy, collaborative, and intentional sessions that center students. The training will share strategies for identifying saviorism in yourself and programming and for working collaboratively to reduce the likelihood of causing harm to formerly incarcerated people while providing education in prison and reentry services.
Trauma-Informed Practices for Teaching in Carceral Spaces
This training explores how to utilize trauma-informed practices in carceral and reentry spaces. Living in prisons can be stressful and traumatizing for students and impact their learning during and after incarceration. This is why it's particularly important for educators entering facilities or working with formerly incarcerated people to be prepared to implement trauma-informed strategies and practices. In this workshop, participants will engage in discussion and small-group activities to learn about trauma-informed strategies to support incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. At the end of the training, participants will be able to utilize trauma-informed techniques and self care strategies to support system-impacted people and avoid causing additional harm.
Reentry Simulation
Our Reentry Simulation challenges participants to walk in the shoes of a person returning to their community after a period of incarceration. At the beginning of the workshop, each participant receives a "life card" outlining the background, current living situation and employment conditions of a formerly incarcerated person, alongside a number of tasks that need to be accomplished to avoid re-incarceration. During the simulation, participants work to accomplish these tasks moving through a number of "stations", including DMV, Probation, Court, GED, Bank, Employer, Social Services, Transportation, etc. At the end of the simulation, facilitators lead a debriefing session discussing the struggles and challenges faced by individuals who are transitioning from incarceration back into society.
Radical Self and Collective Care
Organizers and activists of color have long insisted on the importance of addressing the emotional, psychological, and physical toll of fighting toward social justice. Working in prison education requires us to focus on systemic issues and structural change, but the stressful nature of carceral spaces means that we cannot neglect to consider the complex connections between caring for ourselves, our communities, our movements, and the world. In this workshop, participants will explore the legacy of radical self care and analyze the ways that self care practices can support and sustain individual and collective transformation.
Access to Training Library & Resources
The PGP can also provide access to its library of trainings and resources, including:
5-hour online (live or recorded) pre-service training with related pre-readings and tutoring resources, covering:
- Module 1: The Carceral State & Educational Justice
- Module 2: Education in Carceral & Reentry Spaces
- Module 3: Tutoring Strategies & Practice
- Module 4: Ethical Volunteerism & Intentional Engagement
An archive of subject-specific tutor trainings as well as access to live trainings and discussions held during the academic year, such as:
- The Tutor's Role and Tutoring Writing
- Tutoring Math and Test-Taking Skills
- Strategies for Centering Students: Student Talking Time and Checking for Understanding
- The Digital Divide, Digital Literacy, and Virtual Tutoring: Strategies and Tools
- Tutoring Reading Comprehension
- Tutoring English as a New Language
- Student Motivation and Engagement
- Disability Justice Informed Tutoring: Designing the Education Spaceship
- Tutoring Social Studies: Reading Comprehension and GED Prep
Access to PGP's curated library of subject-specific tutoring resources
The fees for our workshop series vary, based on the format and number of events. Access to our library of trainings is always free for the PGP volunteers. Individuals and organizations can also sign up to access our trainings and library of curated resources for a fee. Please contact us for details.
For more information on the PGP's trainings and professional development resources, please contact the Executive Director of the Puttkammer Center for Educational Justice, Chiara Benetollo