14. Group Dynamics, Boundaries and Volunteer Self-Care

A. Prison Tours

Where possible, arrangements should be made for COSA volunteers to travel to an institution for a tour. While useful as a supplement to Phase III training, as outlined in the Guide to Training Potential Volunteers 2002, the goal is to help volunteers understand the enormous task that individuals have when being released at the end of their sentence.

Prison tours also allow COSA volunteers to develop closer relationships with each other. Many volunteers have never been inside a prison. The experience is usually very powerful and, when experienced as a group, it can build cohesion.

Before taking a tour, it is recommended that volunteers review the CSC video "Don't Risk It." This video presentation is mandatory for all individuals who wish to become the CSC volunteers. It helps volunteers remain safe and be aware of the rules of conduct within the prison setting.

Volunteers should gain insight into the daily life of an institution and then compare it to their life at home. The transition between the two worlds of prison and community is dramatic, and when it happens at WED, it is often traumatic.

Institutional staff, Inmate Committee members, Native Brotherhood members and other groups within the institutional setting should be invited to speak with the COSA volunteers.

In ideal circumstances, volunteers can be exposed to all the custodial areas of the criminal justice system, from police lock-ups, court holding rooms, remand centres, intake units, maximum, medium and minimum security settings, detention cells and Regional Health Centres. In this way, they can trace the "walk" of an offender on his way through the criminal justice system. Volunteers should be encouraged to look, listen and absorb, rather than to engage in discussion or debate with those they meet.

Their experience of walking through a core member's world should be contrasted with the world the core member is rejoining. Experiencing the contrast is often profound.