Compassion In Action

https://youtu.be/e2rdXV2iY_w

After 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, Dr. Gabor Maté worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of four books published in over thirty languages, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness.

https://youtu.be/LSCxaNSKfxk

Dr. Jay Faber is a clinical and forensic psychiatrist, child psychiatrist, and adult psychiatrist at Amen Clinics. He has more than two decades of experience in Child Psychiatry, Adolescent Psychiatry, and Adult Psychiatry and Pharmacological Management, treating patients in clinical private practices in Colorado, California and Georgia. In addition to his work at Amen Clinics, Dr. Faber is President of BrainSource, a corporation founded to teach adolescents how to build successful lives.

Since working at the clinic, Dr. Faber has also written a book; Escape: Rehab Your Brain To Stay Out of The Legal System. The book focuses on five areas to help individuals work on implementing disciplines to never return to that system again.

Dr. Faber received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN and an MD from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Faber completed his Residency in Adult Psychiatry, and went on to receive a Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Harbor UCLA Medical Center in 1991 as well as a Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry at USC Institute of Psychiatry and Law in 1995.

https://youtu.be/m6sVk_DVNPA

This short, 15-minute conversation between our founder, Fritzi Horstman and Dr. Kim Gorgens informs about the unique effects of Traumatic Brain Injury as it applies to the 50 to 80% of those residing in prisons in the U.S., how it effects our behavior and we also learn what Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor is!

Dr. Kim Gorgens is a Professor of Psychophysiology, Clinical Neuropsychology and Psychology of Criminal Behavior at the University of Denver. She manages a large portfolio of traumatic brain injury (TBI) related research and has lectured extensively on those issues (including a 2010 TED talk on youth sports concussion, a 2018 TED talk on brain injuries in criminal justice, several NPR spots and an interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper). Her work has been featured in USNews, Newsweek, Salon.com and more. Her research studies the reported injury history, cognitive function and brain biomarkers of youth and college athletes, probationers and inmates. Her mission is to better understand the short and long-term impacts of injuring our most vital organ.

To learn more about TBI or to download our Traumatic Brain Injury Packet which includes Dr. Kim Gorgens’ resources, click here.

https://youtu.be/UwONabrmGOQ

Mark Moskowitz had a 28-year career in finance including a time owning his own hedge fund. During a spiral in his life, Mark found himself pleading guilty to wire fraud for taking $700,000 of the funds assets. He was sentenced to 33 months and went to Otisville Federal Prison. It was there that he learned about his trauma as a child that led to a life of low self-esteem and poor decision making.

Since his release in 2019 Mark has dedicated himself to teaching the principles he learned while incarcerated. He is a speaker, coach, CPP volunteer and will be releasing his first book in the Spring of 2022. Click here to pre-order Mark’s book, Within: How I Found My Authentic and Happy Self in a Federal Prison.

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https://youtu.be/ioirn2Sax4o

Our guests today are filmmaker Katherin Hervey, influencer Troy Williams and community leader Michael Nelson.

This conversation, with the director and two principle participants in the making of the award-winning film “The Prison Within”, touches upon taking responsibility for our own violence, our accountability as a society and how we get down to doing the work necessary to heal the past both individually and collectively.

Katherin Hervey is an award-winning filmmaker whose work focuses on those of us who live in the margins but refuse to be marginalized. THE PRISON WITHIN, her award-winning first feature film, sprung from her work as a Los Angeles Public Defender and volunteer prison college instructor. THE PRISON WITHIN premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, winning Best Social Justice Documentary, In addition, Katherin is a thought leader in the field of criminal justice reform, featured in the Business Insider, The Guardian, Forbes, and other publications, tv and radio shows, and podcasts. The Prison Within will also be part of the Compassion Prison Project’s Trauma Talks Curriculum.

While incarcerated (from the age of 15), Michael Nelson successfully completed his Associates degree; and was certified as a rape/crisis counselor. He is co-founder of Kid C.A.T and created Acting with Compassion and Truth (A.C.T.) at San Quentin, Nelson holds his work with Kid C.A.T. as his responsibility to contribute to restorative work, and has dedicated a great deal of his life to the program.

Troy Williams became a certified paralegal, helped facilitate, participate, and develop the Victim-Offender Education Group (VOEG) curriculum for Insight Prison Project, served as Executive Director of San Quentin’s Restorative Justice Interfaith Roundtable, co-founded San Quentin’s financial literacy program and F.E.E.L. philosophy (Financial Empowerment Emotional Literacy), and founded a video production program, and was founder of the first ‘behind bars’ audio production program: the award-winning San Quentin Prison Report (SQPR) while he was incarcerated. Williams spent the last seven years of his incarceration teaching his peers to produce audio and building the media lab now used by Ear Hustle.

In addition to his work as a motivational speaker, actor, cinematographer, filmmaker, and audio producer, Williams is the Founder and Executive Director of Restorative Media.

In 2018, Troy was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship where he is working to create a national multimedia platform and community engagement program that will help formerly incarcerated people document their lived experiences and engage the public.

Visit theprisonwithin.org to watch the film today.

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Brian Koehn is the founder of Social Profit Corrections, a nonprofit organization. He has over 28 years of experience in the field of private corrections serving in various leadership roles, including 14 years as a Complex Warden and Warden at five separate facilities, managing contracts in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the United States Marshal Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, multiple States, detention and county jails.

Mr. Koehn has been instrumental in developing policies and processes that focus on resident change initiatives, security, and staff well-being and training. Mr. Koehn is a proud veteran of the United States Marine Corps and the US Army.

Check out his amazing vision on his Social Profit Corrections website.