Thursday at Noon on KPNW-DB, Published to other outlets at 6:00 PM

iChange Justice host Joy Gilfilen discusses "The Domination Effect" with Beth Brownfield, an activist who has been working with original nations and people for over 41 years to understand the long-term impacts of cultural genocide on humanity.

Just last week, Beth hosted Lummi Elder Jewell James at the Bellingham Universalist Fellowship to speak about the Doctrine of Discoveries and how its flawed use has created compound conflicts and escalating injustice in U.S. and statewide constitutional law. Its impact is rippling out as our County deals with mental health and homelessness, police violence, emergency crisis, and criminal legal system management issues.

Beth was instrumental in organizing the protest at the Dakota Access Pipeline where 90 Unitarian Universalist ministers linked arms with dozens of religious leaders across the nation to stand up and repudiate the Doctrine of Discoveries. Beth worked with a Community Connections Committee that supported Lummi Nation who hosted the 2007 "Paddle to Lummi Tribal Canoe Journey" where Lummi provided hospitality to over 100,000 people during the week.  This committee's work then led to the development of a Proclamation Honoring the First Peoples of these Lands and Water; which was the first recognition of the indigenous inhabitants, and signed by all the Mayors of the County, the Whatcom County Executive, the Governor and elected officials of Washington State.

"Compassionate Action" is the discussion between Ruth Ann Lonardelli and Joy Gilfilen, the host of iChange Justice. In this New Year especially, people across all layers of our society and across all generations are facing different kinds of grief, trauma, distress, sadness, and emotional upheavals.

The civic, social, and economic stress has been building up over several years post-pandemic. We've been reeling in the aftermath of social, political, police, and homeless conflicts, on top of weather disasters, being travel limited, and having our social and business networks closed down are disrupting our lives.

Annie is the author of What I Learned from Falling; Finding Spiritual Ground When You Stop Believing. She brings a fresh view and powerful insights into the vision for 2023! If people need encouragement during this time of change, she can be reached at [email protected]

Joy Gilfilen, host of iChange Justice, talks with Peter, a father of a young woman dealing with Fentanyl addiction issues, overdoses, depression, mental illness and the long road to try to find a path to recovery. What happened? How does it feel going through it? From his lived experience -- what do we need to know about the despair, the paralysis?

What has been the ripple effect, the gaps, the unresolved needs? How could we humanize the process, to create a compassionate way to confront the emotional, physical and psychological trauma on the family as they face years of grief, shock, compound distress, fear, loss and learning?

Peter poses a challenge to us all: Why can't we build an early prevention and intervention model for healing our hearts, that can help us all as a community help each other humanize our systems, and help each other with compassion to meet the epidemic of addictions, suicides, violence thats tearing our communities apart? What happened? How does it feel going through it? From his lived experience -- what do we need to know about the despair, the paralysis?

Joy Gilfilen and Chene Keltz discuss hosting season #1 of the iChange Justice podcast and how this ties into the Open House and 16th Anniversary Celebration of the Restorative CommUnity Coalition on December 28th!  There will be a special Zoom call that night that anyone can attend online (or in person at their offices in Bellingham, WA!  Go to www.theRestorativeCommunity.org for links and details!  

In today's episode we talk about what was learned from Season 1, and how we are building off that success for our Season 2 series!  Chene will be the primary host working with others who have lived experience in the field doing peer-to-peer mentoring, case navigation and community development with other allies working in the field. 

With the new year comes a focus on funding the RestoreALife Center hub for community Coalition building, for cooperating to support other groups of people working on sustainable living and enterprise collaborations since the past several years have torn apart the old community safety networks that protected people from civic trauma. 

We discuss how it's time to assess the economic devastation experienced in our communities and find ways to team up across different sectors to help meet the real social, public health, and safety needs of our whole community through collaboration!  

iChange Justice Podcast, Season 2, Episode 2, John Fitzpatrick joins Joy Gilfilen, Host of iChange Justice to discuss his life behind bars, and afterwards since release and successful reintegration into society. John shares his history with Irene Morgan and why the Restorative CommUnity Coalition's pioneering work in building alternatives to incarceration mattered to him, and to others.

Irene Morgan wrote to him in prison for eight years, encouraging him to establish reentry programs inside. John earned certificates in Water Treatment and Wastewater Treatment and won a Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs TV Show) Scholarship as a mobile crane operator (which he earned) and continued on to Lower Columbia College to get licensed in Diesel Mechanics, then continued his education to help people acclimate to life after release. Licensed in Certified Peer Counselling (CPC), Substance and Mental Health Services, as a Housing Services Specialist and Employment Specialist, he's working with others returning homeless in Cowlitz County, WA.

To stop the recidivism cycle, John will be hosting online coach/mentor training through the Restorative CommUnity Coalition so volunteers can become advocates helping people entering the trades. His real-world-lived experience doing dirty jobs inside and outside the jail industry includes fighting wildfires for the DNR. You can watch his YouTube, episode of Dirty Jobs here

https://loom.ly/1E0o6-w

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Season 2 of iChange Justice Podcast begins with "The Money Business" as experienced from inside prison walls. Our listeners hear firsthand how jail industry contractors and DOC officials do business. This interview is directly from an inmate discussing how things have changed the past few years for people incarcerated (especially since 2007) in Washington State.

It has become very difficult to talk about and to advocate for justice once you are inside. Due to various legislative issues, minimum wage inmate jobs have been lost, and the only work is janitorial or maintenance. Inmates are paid 60 cents an hour, and there is a $55-a-month income cap.

At the same time, the costs of telephone calls, mailing letters and sending and receiving emails have risen. For example, just one 15-minute conversation with a family member in another state cost him $25.00.

The old story of people being able to be rehabilitated and being able to leave prison with some earned money saved is now mostly a fairytale.

Listen to iChange Justice Podcast on KPNW-DB at NOON on Thursdays, then find us where you get all your favorite podcasts.

Irene Morgan is the featured guest interviewed by Joy Gilfilen, host of iChange Justice, speaking about "expungement of records" and why it matters to people involved in the criminal legal system.  Rebuilding their lives is often virtually impossible without mentorship supports and people with experience helping them recover through all the legal chaos.  

Helping people do expungements is one of the direct Client Services that the Restorative CommUnity has now added to the list of critical actions.  Irene has learned how the aftereffects of job loss, homelessness, poverty, and the exponential impact of expenses leave a long-term legacy of trauma, that leaves people vulnerable to another layer of lifetime punishment, persecution, poverty, abuse, and damage. 

Most people don't even attempt it, for Irene talks about how the complexities of different legal systems can be impossible to see through when people are traumatized. Getting through the maze of barriers that people operating the system often do not even know exist.  

Joy Gilfilen, host of iChange Justice, interviews Atul Deshmane about the complex effects of compound civic trauma in the community. How has it impacted individual people to live with 3 - 5 years of escalating distress as we went through layers of conflict...political, social, economic, emotional, and physical disasters and emergencies?

What were the impacts on different kinds of people in different industries, on our business people, our farmers, our civic leaders, and 1st responders as we weathered 3 years of unrelenting severe trauma as the covid crisis left people with unresolved grief and separation anxiety, mental distress, and family upheaval?

In today’s 50th episode of iChange Justice Podcast, Joy Gilfilen, President of the Restorative Community Coalition and podcast Host,  interviews our Media Manager, Ava Sakowski, and former outreach counseling professional.  Why?  To share Ava’s reflections as a social service worker from 1970-1995 regarding the last three years of emergency crisis conditions affecting our families.    

Ava recalls how being a recipient of social services made her the person she grew into as an adult.  In the 70s publicly provided services were made available for high-risk teenagers to prevent drug abuse when they needed it most.  The discussion centers on how these services that were available to the community (and police officers) mattered.  She notes how these support systems have all but disappeared over the course of the last 25 years.

Ava experienced how change within the system (structures, money, and resources) dried up for treatments; these resources were pumped heavily into the punishment and incarceration systems. The change in the system forced her and her husband to find another way to make a living.   

She concludes that it is necessary to rebuild the infrastructure of non-profits that offer foot-on-the-street services to people in trauma from homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, or other traumatic issues. 

iChange Justice host Joy Gilfilen interviews Paxton...what a working man learned when he started exploring what happens to people when they get "bucked out" of the working class and live homeless - outside the bubble of what people think is normal.

What did he learn about how the world works differently when you have no phone, no credit card, and no network to support your view of yourself? He shares how the context shifts, and no one who recognizes you, no way to rent a hotel or take certain kinds of transportation.  In some cases, real money currency is not the trade tool; you need a card.  Many people or businesses no longer carry cash money, so you can't even do business with them without a card.

Remarkably, he says it's like you can become one of those who is "disappeared" from the reality you used to call normal. There is no sense of place, or connection.  Your ability to plan your time horizon shrinks, and it becomes hard to focus, plan or take consistent action...so people need to team up to support each other, especially in cold weather.