Girl Scouts Beyond Bars

by Loren Paulsson on April 01, 2010 | photography by Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma and Oklahoma Christian University

Oklahoma leads the nation, incarcerating 134 women per 100,000 population in 2009. According to the Oklahoma Study of Incarcerated Mothers and Their Children 2009, this affects over 4000 children under age 18. Sheila Harbert is director of Girl Scouts Beyond Bars for Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma.

Character First: What attracted you personally to the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program?

Sheila Harbert: I have 14 years background as an Oklahoma Department of Corrections volunteer through my church. During Bible study, the ladies would always show remorse and regret for “letting their children down.” They were extremely sorrowful because they were not able to see their children. In 2003, Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma was awarded a grant for the specific purpose of using Girl Scouting principles to help mend mother/daughter relationships that were broken due to incarceration. I jumped at the opportunity!

CF: You mentioned a conversation you had with one of the girls concerned about her brother not being able to go visit their mother. Could you describe that conversation? What prompted you to do something about it?

Harbert: While returning a young girl home after a fun outing, her brother ran to the van and asked the girl what she did and if she had fun. The young girl—who was previously laughing and talking about how much fun she had—answered, “It was okay.”

At a future meeting, I asked the young girl why she played down her good time...and she replied, “It’s fun going to see Momma, but it’s hard going home to my brother and he didn’t get to have the same fun as me. So I just always make it sound like no big deal.” Then she asked me why the brothers don’t get to go.

Sheila Harbert and colleagues with State Treasurer Scott Meacham As a leader, we teach the girls that there is a solution to every problem. We just have to put our resources to good use to solve them. We have always taught that Girl Scouts are innovative and can do anything they put their mind to. This young girl believed us. Thus was born Boys 2 MEND.

CF: You said a similar conversation led your organization to start Project Reconnect. What happened there?

Harbert: An important part of Project MEND is that we meet with the mothers apart from our child/mom meetings and teach them life skills that prepare them to go home and take care of their families. The children have always been an integral part of this teaching. Project MEND allows the children to remain with [the] program after the mother’s release, so our leaders have regular communication with the mothers post-release.

An older girl scout read about reentry and how other states were allowing mothers to learn a trade while they are incarcerated so that they could find a good job after release. With the overwhelming support of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, Project Reconnect was born.

CF: You have many organizations working together on Project Reconnect. What challenges have you encountered? How did you and those involved deal with them?

Harbert: Our partners began with Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Helping Women Recover, Arbor Workforce, Tulsa Technology Center, and CareerTech.

The challenges we faced were providing this type of program while the ladies were incarcerated. The ladies had to be transported to a different location for training. Also the same time we started this program, the country went into a recession.

We overcame the challenges by constantly evaluating our current programming. Three classes later, we have learned so much and feel that we are on the right track.