Pandemic prompts move into community for group helping incarcerated women

Open Door Outreach, a P.E.I. group dedicated to helping women in jail get their lives back on track, has been kept out of the Provincial Correctional Centre by public health guidelines, but is still finding a way to help.

With the jail closed to all members of the community during the COVID-19 pandemic, Open Door Outreach has not been able to offer any of its in-person programs since March of last year. Those included group therapy sessions, one-on-one mentoring, and chapel services.

"We provide them with backpacks of personal hygiene products when they're getting out of jail and we're a place for them to connect when they get out," said executive director Cheryl Millman.

Unable to get into the jail, the group turned its attention to other places where it might help. One of those was Lennon Recovery House in South Rustico.

"Some of the people who were in jail transition to Lennon," said Millman.

"We have a relationship with them and they invited us to come out and that's how that grew. So that was a beautiful thing."

Programming has also been stepped up at the recovery home in Charlottetown. Some of the women at the Provincial Correctional Centre were transferred to the Youth Detention Centre in Summerside, and because there was access to technology Open Door Outreach was able to offer some courses online.

Millman said while her group is looking forward to providing in-person services in the jail again, it continue its work at the recovery homes, or wherever the women need them, Millman said.

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