By: Jessica L. Henry
My identify is Jessica Louise Henry. I am a 39-year-old lady born and elevated in Detroit. Immediately after foster care, juvenile detention facilities, teenager pregnancy, a few rehabs, a number of therapists, eight jail phrases, and two prison bids, my everyday living had turn out to be scattered. I have a visual of playing cards spread haphazardly across the flooring with several unanswered “whys” that have piled up during my life.
I could tell you about myself, but right until you really sit down and get to know me for on your own, you might not be ready to thoroughly enjoy my tale. I am extra than just my errors or my damaged heritage. I am much more than a statistic or the stigma that society has taken on alone to position on me. While words and phrases fall short to convey the benefit of my encounter, my actions do much much more justice.
Education has constantly been an vital portion of my upbringing, even all through the trauma, neglect, and incarceration. In simple fact, due to the fact of the incarceration, my education became a priority. For the duration of my initial jail bid I was in a position to generate my GED at age 32 soon after staying out of faculty for 16 several years. I experienced hopes of continuing my schooling on my launch, but my plans were hindered by limitations and self-sabotage. When I started my next prison bid, I was ready in a new way. My coronary heart was in it. My soul was prepared for redemption. Right after staying stripped of my dignity, worth, humanity, and value because of to my incarcerated condition, I felt that I could reclaim what was taken by reaching greatness as a result of my educational success.
In January of 2017, I was acknowledged to Jackson College’s Second Opportunity Pell method exactly where I completed 3 associate’s levels by August of 2019. I graduated with a 3.96 GPA and walked throughout the phase with Substantial Honors. I personally received back again all my dignity, value, humanity, worthy of and much more. I even shook the Warden’s hand proudly. It is notable to mention that my entire graduating class graduated with Substantial Honors that day, all seventeen ladies.
The benefit that this program has brought to my everyday living is much more than I have gotten in any of my latest on-campus courses. Getting in the jail natural environment, I had a prospect to master with gals who have been as a result of life-altering ordeals. We learned collectively with the curriculum and with our activities in thoughts. We realized with pen and paper, our training course supplies, and little to no engineering. The intimacy of our classroom, the students and professors incorporated, can not be matched anywhere else.
I now go to Spring Arbor University earning my bachelor’s in Social Work with a double small in Psychology and Business. I will graduate in the spring of 2023 and shift on to get my Learn of Social Get the job done (MSW). I can actually say that now I have these scattered cards in my hand, and I can have an understanding of the “why” of it all. I know that those people struggles have organized me for this minute in my existence, giving back by way of social work. I know that I have been geared up to assist people who have or are having difficulties to come across the help they require to get again on their feet. Many thanks to my schooling and the possibilities the Next Likelihood Pell plan afforded me during my incarceration I can say that I am back on my toes.