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In March 2020, both Franklin The Challenges • determining which programs
County Corrections Centers entered Not only were we faced with a would be most effective using
a full lockdown mode that stopped pandemic that changed the way we remote learning, and
all movement—including in-person conducted daily operations, but our • creating supplemental activities
programming—for an indefinite social services department needed to aid in the transition.
period. One of the main concerns to be updated even before the pan-
of the complete lockdown was demic. As the new social services What’s Next?
how to keep our inmate population director, this was my primary task. In social services, we decided
positively engaged. The mission of We faced multiple challenges as we that contests and non-programmatic
our social services department is to started to transition our program- interactions were the safest ways
provide rehabilitative opportunities ming options, including: to begin during a lockdown. We
for offenders via reentry planning • addressing the lack of technology started our engagement by holding
and programming with the end goal within the housing units and our two small contests—drawing and
of significantly reducing repeated current programming space at recipes.
criminal activity after incarceration both facilities,
and ultimately reducing recidivism. • providing user-friendly, in- The drawing contests were
The question for our staff was: How person programming in a remote theme-based. The recipe contests
could we be true to our mission learning format, were designed for the use of the
when we could not offer traditional inmates’ commissary, combined
programming? with meal trays acting as compli-
mentary ingredients. Both the recipe

22 | MAY | JUNE 2021 AMERICANJails