What becomes of the formerly incarcerated?

The Catalyst Fund of the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain is inviting grant applications for one grant of up to $15,000 to be awarded in November addressing the 2023 topic of prison reentry.

The Catalyst Fund is a giving circle of community donors interested in helping to improve the quality of life in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington.

Daryl McGraw of Formerly, Inc. and Andrew Clark from the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at UConn provided a broad overview to the Catalyst membership at a June 28 meeting on the challenging process of reentering the community for formerly incarcerated individuals. The CFGNB seeks applications from community-based nonprofit organizations for new programs, or for the expansion of existing programs, to enhance or implement evidence-based and holistic responses to improve reentry and support successful transitional planning for individuals who are currently, or were formerly, involved in the criminal justice system, and to reduce recidivism. charge of connecting those teens to providers, whether they were referred by a hospital, EMS provider, community health center, or school.

Organizations in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington are invited to respond. Visit cfgnb.org/requests-forproposal. Proposals are due by Aug. 21.

“It’s going to be a nowrong-door approach,” said Ghio.

Fighting the stigma

The program will also focus on addressing the stigma against mental health care often found in rural communities. “It’s just the nature of the rural community,” said Ghio, who grew up in Warren and now resides in New Milford. “There’s one: ‘We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.’ And there’s two: ‘We don’t see those problems here.”

Across the state, Killingly endured a high-profile battle over the local school board’s decision in 2022 to turn down a grant-funded mental health clinic at the high school. This past April, after a yearlong saga that involved parents, administrators and state officials, the town’s Board of Education approved a new memorandum of understanding for a mental health provider to come into the school.

Ghio said he experienced some pushback from the area’s first selectmen when he first started discussing the need for more behavioral health care among teens roughly 18 months ago.

But, now, most of them are on board.

“I tried to always bring it close to home and ask them to put themselves in the position of a parent who … had a child that was experiencing behavioral health issues,” he said.

After Ghio’s parents got divorced when he was in elementary school, he began acting out.

His mother found him a therapist, but Ghio remembers having to drive 35 minutes from his house to see his provider.

He feels lucky that his mom even had a vehicle, which allowed him to access the care he needed.

“Ultimately, it hits home for me to offer this network and the services that we will,” he said.

This story originally appeared on the website of The Connecticut Mirror, ctmirror.org.

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