St-Henri reintegration program gives women new start

It's 11:30 a.m. on a Monday morning and chef Melissa Simard's monthlycooking class is in full swing.

Sylvie Godin is chopping broccoli florets for amixed bean salad at the kitchen table while Natasha Razouk is across theroom at the stove frying zucchini for vegetarian Moussaka.

Simard'sMoussakarecipecalls for layers of sliced eggplant, tomatoes, garlic and lentilssmothered in a sour cream Bchamel and baked until the Greek sheep's milkcheese sprinkled on top turns golden brown.

Next on the to-do list for thehandful of women in attendance is rolling out homemade pie dough for therustic plum tarts.

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This isn't your average cooking class. It takes place at CFAD (Continuitfamille auprs des dtenues), the province's only official reintegrationprogram to help mothers who've had run-ins with the justice system anything from time in a youth home, to an arrest orincarceration.

Reintegration is a term CFAD director Agns Billa keeps repeating whentalking about government policy and the centre's goals.

Resilience through CFAD

9 years ago

Duration 0:37

Participant Natasha Razouk talks about how the program helps her stay on track despite some setbacks.

CFAD offers thewomen help looking for jobs and apartments and helpsthem transition back into the community. Their children come to dohomework and to participate with their mothers in centre-run activities likeapple picking and skating.

Yolande Trpanier founded the non-profit organization nearly 30 yearsago. After Trpanier's deathlast fall, Billa took over as director.

Thewomen in the cooking class are part of the PACE program, the Programmed'action communautaire pour les enfants. She says programs like these areimportant because these mothers don't have many places to turn to for help.

The majority of mothers who come out of theCanadian prison system areliving below the poverty line. Many are single parents and had their firstchild before they were 21 yearsold.

Between 2003 and 2013, the number of women in prisoninQuebec increased by 34 per cent.

None of the women at last month's class spent time in prison, but for many ofthe mothers who come to the centre, maintaining a healthy relationship withtheir children and creating a stable home is still a large part oftheir rehabilitation.

Razouk is completing her high school diploma and wantsto go on to nursing school.

"My participation here keeps me extremelymotivated," she says. "I feel very supported by the staff here. I feel helped andlistened to."

Chef Simard has been volunteering with the centre for more than a year butshe comes from a fine dining background.

She's worked at some ofMontreal's top restaurants, including Graziella and Casa Tapas,but she likes working with organizations like CFAD because of the impact theycan have on the people involved.

"I like the organization, so I wanted tohelp any way I could," she says.

"I figured eight hours amonth, it's worth it and they seem really intoit. Sometimes we don't have a lot to do and wesit around and talk while things cook in theoven."

She works with whatever Moisson Montreal donates each month, plus a $30budget for basics like oil, eggs and spices.

This month, it's Moussaka andplum pie, but last month when the Moisson Montreal truck broke down, hermenu choices were more limited.

So Godin and a handful of other women sliced potatoes, opened packages of cheese curds and heated cans of peppercorn sauce for a lightened-up poutine with baked fries.

They also boiled giant pots of ham for a bean soup, stuffed wilted Swiss chard into more ham and rolled sausage wieners into pigs in a blanket.

CFAD gets most of its funding from the provincial and federal governments.Billa says they're trying to increase private donations because she's skepticalof how long that funding will last.

A2007 federal report on the reintegration of offendersindicates that overall, the results of intervention programswithin and outside of the prison system are mixed.

But a2010-2013 Quebecgovernment action plansupports thefinancial wisdom of social reinsertion overre-incarceration.

Billa says funding is being threatened and tougher legislationon the length of jail time is in the works.

"It used to be that sometimes,depending on the crime you committed and theway you behaved in jail, after one-third of thesentence served you could maybe go back tothe community," she said.

"Sometimes you had to do someprograms and work. But that's no longer thecase. They may now be sentenced to life andbasically serve their sentence until they die injail."

On average, provincial inmates in 2010-2011 cost the government $171 a day.Federal inmates cost nearlytwice that $357 a day, according to 2011 Statistics Canada figures.

More than a cooking class

The classes are about more than learning to make a recipe, says AgatheMelanon. She comes for the socializing and for the food for her family.

"Myson does his homework here and we participate in some of the familyactivities," she says.

She didn't return to work after her son was born, but shevolunteers for Le Canal, a free paper in St-Henri that supports social housingissues in the area.

Billa says she sees a difference in the women after they come to the centre.

The class takes organization, but volunteers like Simard and the cooperationof the women who attend make it worthwhile.

She likes the sense ofcommunity that the centre creates. And she and her colleagues like the smellof lunch cooking in the kitchen next to her office.

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St-Henri Chronicles

St-Henri Chronicles is a collaboration between the Department of Journalism at Concordia University, and CBC Montreal.

Students in a graduate-level multimedia course were asked to find and produce original stories on St-Henri for their final class project.

They spent the winter term developing these stories, and experimented with sound, pictures, video, infographics and maps to tell them.

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