We have three Behavioral Health Resource Network (BHRN) grants through Oregon Health Authority (OHA). The grants are for peer support for those with substance use disorder. We are part of the Clackamas County BHRN, the Multnomah East County BHRN, and the Washington County BHRN. Glen Marshall, our peer support specialist (peer mentor), is very experienced and tremendously gifted in working with mentees.

The Health Equity grant, also from OHA, funds our Tools for Transformation class that meets weekly at OHSU Richmond Clinic. Students explore how ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) impact their current behavior and engage in some fun ways to address them – like art and music therapy, movement, meditation, play, and other helpful information.

PHOENIX has been a member of Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good (MACG) since its founding in 2002. MACG is an aggregate of over 20 community-based, faith-based, labor, and educational institutions joining together to make positive community change over a variety of issues. MACG is the Portland metro affiliate of the national Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and the regional IAF Pacific. PHOENIX relies on MACG leaders to join us in our Community InReach (in prison) projects to help teach leadership skills. We strongly encourage those who have graduated from our prison training to join in the community-based leadership training that MACG offers in the Portland metro area. These leadership trainings foster the building blocks of Relational Culture that includes one-to-one Intentional Conversations on specific topics, small group table discussions, and large group plenary discussions. These serve to break down barriers and reduce stigma for both prisoners and community members. This is humanizing and strengthens pro-social attitudes and behaviors for those rejoining the community after prison.

We serve as a practicum site for two students per term from the Populations class to work on a project that deepens their understanding of the impact of incarceration as a social determinant of health. Students attended and participated in our InReach Leadership class at Columbia River Correctional Institution (CRCI) and our Tools for Transformation class in the community. We also make presentations each term to all students in the Populations class, covering the range of what nursing students in past terms have discovered about how incarceration affects health, as well as what the men in our class at CRCI have shared about their own experiences of and perspectives on healthcare in prison and the community.