Level Learning

Happy April! 🩵 Did you know that this month is both Financial Literacy Month AND Second Chance Month?

To celebrate, we are so excited to announce our newest guide for our learners inside: Build Your Financial Future: Stabilize and Grow. Today, 121 of these guides are in the mail heading directly to people in prison across the country – and thousands more will follow!

Every stack of paper in this photo represents a new beginning and a brighter future for someone preparing to come home. This new curriculum builds on the foundations of financial literacy. It helps learners understand how to manage debt, build a safety net, and make a plan for their future.

A huge thank you to our subject matter expert, Kevin Paulin! Kevin shares his own powerful story of reentry and transformation to encourage our learners. As he tells them in the first lesson: "You have an opportunity to make new decisions that will impact generations to come. You have an opportunity to be great."

💙 Love this story of Kathy and Phil Shaw in Virginia who are supporting their loved one on the inside 🙏🏽💪🏽🙏🏽💪🏽💥

For seven long years, Phil and Kathy Shaw had been on the list for adoption, waiting for the call that there was a baby available for placement with them. At last, it came. Go to Roanoke, the Virginia couple was told; there’s a 6 month old boy there for you to see. “They said, ‘Of course, you don’t have to take him if you don’t want,’” says Phil. But as soon as they arrived and a staff person brought the baby to meet them, there was no question about them taking him. “He looks to Kathy,” Phil says, “and he reaches towards her, like, ‘That’s my mama.’ Oh, we knew. We knew.”

They named their new son Bronson (a movie starring Charles Bronson was on TV when the parents-to-be were discussing names, and they knew “right then and there that was his name”) and the connection the Shaws immediately felt to the boy has remained steady ever since, even through the challenges they’ve faced as a family. “We had our problems,” says Phil. “He’s been a difficult child to raise, Lord knows – Kathy took the brunt of it – but we love him. He’s still got problems, but, you know… he’s my son. He’s our son. And we want to help him in any way we can.”

With Bronson currently incarcerated in a Virginia state correctional facility, the help his parents want to provide is by way of education. “Kathy has an associate’s degree, I have a bachelor’s degree, and we realize education is power,” says Phil. “Simple as that. You get an education – and it doesn’t have to be book education, it doesn’t have to be to get an actual college degree – any knowledge only helps you and, if you’re working, only helps your employer. So that’s what we want for our son. We want him to be successful.”

It was Bronson who discovered Level and told his dad, “Check this out. This is something.” Once Phil did check it out, he realized that the program offered a rare opportunity for his son to further his education while he was incarcerated. “The state of Virginia is very, very backward when it comes to educating their felons over 21,” he says. “If you’re under 21, they have a high school for you, so you can graduate from high school. If you’re under 21, they do rehabilitation. If you’re over that age, it’s incarceration. And they do nothing – I repeat, nothing – to make sure that when you leave those gates you won’t be back. I like the fact that Level is helping people that sometimes have no help on the outside. By helping them, you’re only going to make them a better citizen when they get out.”

Bronson getting out is a thing Phil and Kathy think about a great deal. And they have worries. “When you get out of prison, you’ve done your time according to the law, okay?” says Phil. “However, most public opinion is, they hold it against you. As a matter of fact, here in Chesterfield County, my son will not be able to rent an apartment. Why? Because he’s a convicted felon. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t make sense to me. And then, it was only up until recently that if you owed fines to the state of Virginia, they suspended your driving license. Now, if you’re lucky enough to get a job, and you’re lucky enough to have some place to stay, it better be on a bus line or you have somebody to take you to and from the job. Failing that, you’ve got to drive. Well, what happens? You’re breaking the law again. What happens? They’re going to send you back in.”

💙 Proud to share the story of Nicole Steward in Michigan who is supporting her loved one on the inside 🙏🏽💪🏽🙏🏽💪🏽💥

“I’ve always helped others.” Nicole Steward is a self-described jack of all trades whose jobs have ranged from real estate agent to hairdresser, insurance agent to photographer. But no matter what her profession’s been at any given moment, Nicole has always made time to lend a hand to those around her. At a high school in southern Michigan, where Nicole has lived since she was in high school herself, she ran an outreach program in which she mentored teenage girls. At her church, she runs a women’s ministry. For the past several years, she’s also been working at Oaklawn, a provider of mental health and addiction services in Indiana. Initially, she facilitated support networks for families in need there. Now, her work focuses on men who have committed domestic violence and children who have experienced it.

Helping others runs in Nicole’s family. Her mother spent many years working as a substance abuse counselor, and Nicole remembers how she would come home and tell Nicole about her therapy groups. Now that she’s become a counselor, Nicole says, “I call her and I tell her stories from my groups. My mom still works, so she still has group. So we go back and forth talking about the different groups.”

Now, the impulse to help others has shown up in the next generation of Nicole’s family. Her son, Jordan Johnson, who’s currently incarcerated in a state prison in Michigan, has told her when he gets out he wants to be a motivational speaker. She sees that future for him as “promising” because of the way Jordan has applied himself on the inside. “He’s read, like, 40 books since he’s been in there,” Nicole says. “Not little 100-page books. I’m talking thick books, you know? So he’s gaining knowledge and more information so when he does come out, he’ll be able to help others.”

Read the full story on our blog https://learnlevel.org/nicole-steward-success-stories/

🤦🏽 🧐 😤Did you know that Oregon, like many states, bans books on computer coding from being sent to people in prison?

Crazy, right?

Prison Pipeline on KBOO Community Radio of Portland, Oregon reached out to talk about this topic and more related to hashtag . Give it a listen 🎧 https://kboo.fm/media/129782-interview-alex-wright-prison-education