Peer Mentoring for Male Parolees: A CBPR Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: Formerly incarcerated adults are impoverished, have high rates of substance use disorders, and have long histories of imprisonment. This article describes the development of a peer mentoring program for formerly incarcerated adults and the pilot study designed to evaluate it. The research team, which included formerly incarcerated adults and academic researchers, developed the peer mentoring program to support formerly incarcerated adults' transition to the community after prison. OBJECTIVES: The purposes of the pilot evaluation study were to (1) assess the feasibility of implementing a peer-based intervention for recently released men developed using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach; (2) establish preliminary data on the program's impact on coping, self-esteem, abstinence self-efficacy, social support, and participation in 12-step meetings; and (3) establish a CBPR team of formerly incarcerated adults and academic researchers to develop, implement, and test interventions for this population. METHOD: This pilot evaluation study employed a mixed-methods approach with a single group pretest/posttest design with 20 men on parole released from prison within the last 30 days. RESULTS: Quantitative findings showed significant improvement on two abstinence self-efficacy subscales, negative affect and habitual craving. Qualitative findings revealed the relevance and acceptance of peer mentoring for this population. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated the feasibility and import of involving formerly incarcerated adults in the design, implementation, and testing of interventions intended to support their reintegration efforts.

Nurses, formerly incarcerated adults, and Gadamer: phronesis and the Socratic dialectic.

This paper describes the first phase of an ongoing education and research project guided by three main intentions: (1) to create opportunities for phronesis in the classroom; (2) to develop new understandings about phronesis as it relates to nursing care generally and to caring for specific groups, like formerly incarcerated adults; and (3) to provide an opportunity for formerly incarcerated adults and graduate nursing students to participate in a dialectical conversation about ethical knowing. Gadamer's writings on practical philosophy, phronesis, and the Socratic dialectic provide the philosophical foundation and framework for the project. The first phase in the project was a 4-h class within a graduate-level health promotion course during which 30 nursing students and three formerly incarcerated panelists engaged in a dialectic conversation about what it means to care for formerly incarcerated adults in a meaningful way. After the class, two focus groups were conducted, one with the students and one with the formerly incarcerated panelists. Findings articulated participants' prejudices and assumptions prior to the class, expanded sense of phronesis, and ability to consider nursing practice within a larger ethical framework. Panelists and students left the class with a deeper understanding of one another and expressed an openness towards continued dialectic conversations together. Use of the Socratic dialectic within nursing curricula reflects a current and critical trend in nursing education to bring non-epistemologic forms of knowledge into the classroom.