A week at Dartmoor

Maria Arpa

Wednesday Whisper

27 February 2019

This week

A week at Dartmoor

Plus…

Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness

and

the Wednesday Whisper

Support is vital for frontline workers

This week and last week are intense weeks developing the DRM at Dartmoor. Working with our team, meeting the next group of trainees and offering DRM to Officers.

While Prison Officers often get a bad name, it’s been a privilege to sit in a circle with Officers and hear how dedicated they are, how much they want to see prisoners make progress and how heart breaking it is to see when a prisoner just can’t seem to be reached. We’ve been talking about how the DRM increases the chances of a prisoner making progress while at the same time, making it easier and safer for the officers to communicate. This is the beginning of another strand of how the DRM can improve prison conditions for everyone.

I asked the Officers to reflect on what it’s like to work in the front line experiencing, on a daily basis, problems and issues that most people experience rarely, if ever, confront, in a setting of deprivation with no beauty. We explored how it affects a person if they don’t talk about it and creating safe spaces to talk about it? I want Officers, who feel supported and cared for, operating on Wings because that is more likely to create calm communication and de-escalation when prisoners communicate badly. And that keeps everyone safer and makes their jobs easier.

One of our Officers who trained in DRM is highly respected by the prisoners. This week he was confronted by a prisoner in a very disrespectful way and many people saw the incident. We ran some Wing Circles to talk about it and it was great to hear the prisoners take issue with the prisoner and hold him accountable, because, on the basis that this particular officer is always respectful in his approach, the prisoners did not want him to be treated badly by anyone.

Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness

This week I was thinking about my own capacity. The Dartmoor Project is growing and developing. We will be bringing on another 12 trainees soon and that means a team of 20 full time DRM Facilitators in the prison. I’m managing the joy and overwhelm I’m experiencing because, while this is as good as my vision, it’s presenting new challenges about organising.

The Wednesday Whisper

Are you ever in joy and overwhelm? How does it affect you?

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2 Comments

Minna Bruce
Posted 6 years ago Reply

As I read the last paragraph of this weeks blog above something tugged at my heart because those 2 words ‘JOY’ and ‘OVERWHELM’ don’t usually sit together in the same phrase and yet it resonated so completely with me.
For the last 6 months I have felt overwhelmed with numerous situations where people I know need support and I find myself in a position where I seem to be able to help them. This is not of my choosing but it does bring me a sense of joy if I can in any way alleviate their suffering.. I feel overwhelmed sometimes because much of this is in the realm of mental health of which I am not trained so all I can offer is my presence and my listening ears and possibly my enthusiasm.. but also what is key I suppose, is that I choose to give my time.
Also at the same time I am thrilled to be moving forward in the area in which I am trained as a Soul Midwife.. this is to be with people as they die and supporting them and their family during their terminal illness. This is the area in which I actually choose to be involved.. and I am very much drawn to take on whoever either comes across my path or whoever contacts me. This brings me a huge time commitment and I have friends saying that I should watch how much I take on.. and “Are you sure you should be doing all this?”.. but although this can overwhelm me in terms of time management, I know that this is what I am meant to be doing.
Although it’s a daily challenge, it brings me an immense inner JOY which in itself is overwhelming!
And this is what inspires me 🙂

So as ever in life its a balancing act..
Here its the balance between a negative overwhelmed state of feeling swamped.. and the stupendous overwhelming honour of finding that wonderful overwhelming sense of JOY doing what feels like my true purpose for living.
- Maria Arpa
  Posted 6 years ago Reply
  
  That’s so well put. I find it hard to let overwhelm get in the way so I do my best to ensure that I build in self care to my schedule. Simple things like choosing a few days to not wake up to an alarm clock or asking everyone around me not to make any requests of me on a particular morning or walking in the park and using the DRM with myself. These spaces and partitions go a long way to alleviating overwhelm. And of course, it’s important to ensure we have support in the form of supervision or mentorship to ensure we’re not straying off into unhelpful practices.