Tribal re-entry program offers help to those in court system
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PABLO – A helping hand to those re-entering society. That’s what the Flathead Indian Reservation’s Tribal Re-entry Program offers to those dealing with misdemeanor or felony convictions.
Once tribal members are released from jail or prison, they may find life difficult. That’s where the tribal re-entry program seeks to make a difference. The program also offers help to members of any federally recognized tribe who are charged with a crime on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
The tribal re-entry program coordinates support services for those who ask for help. These services include psychological help, chemical dependency referrals and signing clients up for Medicaid, for example. Legal services can include parole planning, information about collateral consequences of sentences and help with child custody and visitation issues.
A cultural mentoring program has been established that fluctuates between five and 10 volunteers from the community who meet with clients for discussion or mediate civil matters such as child custody and visitation issues. The University of Montana law clinic also helps with those efforts, said Susette Billedeaux, tribal re-entry program director.
Restoration of driver licenses and help getting employment, vocational training or furthering clients’ education are other aspects of the program, which uses a holistic approach based on the Bronx, New York Defenders Office.
One recent addition is “Incarcerated Anonymous,” a 12-step group based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous that was started by Paula McDonald, a re-entry program case manager, in December.
The program aims to help clients so that they aren’t continually cycling through the criminal justice system facing new charges and parole violations.
Some 85 percent of the program’s clients have a co-occurring mental illness and chemical dependency, said Ann Sherwood, managing attorney of the Tribal Defenders Office. “Sixty-two percent of our clients are in unstable housing,” she said. This includes couch surfing and living in shelters, cars or on the street.
A sober living house slated to open at the Black Bear Ranch north of Hot Springs may help some who struggle with this issue. The home is slated to open later this year.
The re-entry program provides support to clients who likely won’t get it anywhere else, said Billedeaux, who has worked in the Tribal Defenders Office since 2010. “A place where they feel supported goes a long way,” she said, adding that the program aims to help provide services so that clients successfully complete probation.
The re-entry program is funded through a $600,000 Second Chance Act grant from the federal Department of Justice. The Tribal Defenders Office received the funds, which are good for two years, in October 2015 and implemented the re-entry program in February 2016, Billedeaux said.
The program has applied for a new $650,000 three-year grant but likely won’t hear about it until September, Sherwood said.
Although the federal monies fund five staffers, the entire Tribal Defenders Office staff of 14 plays a role in the re-entry program, which also receives funding from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the CSKT Tribal Health Department.
“It takes an excellent staff to provide the services that we do,” said Sherwood, who began working in the office in 1996 as a public defender and has been managing attorney for 10 years. “If we can help with their basic needs (food, clothing and housing), they’re more likely to be successful,” she said. “They have the potential to be productive citizens.”
Emphasizing the need for the program, Sherwood noted that tribes, which represent 7 percent of Montana’s population, are overrepresented in the state’s men’s and women’s prisons. She cited statistics from a 2017 report showing that 34 percent of women and 20 percent of men in Montana’s prisons are tribal members.
