This story was told by a staff member at Centinela.
UCI: Right. And one more question, how has it affected you personally, you know, going in and working with, with the guys and the family incarcerated and then, and then having to switch to this new system and then, yeah, how has it affected you?
Caller: Well, you know, it’s been difficult for sure because the whole, you know, really I learned quickly in teaching this is, I get a lot more out of it, I think, sometimes even than the participants get for me personally. I don’t know if I get more, but I certainly get a lot.
UCI: Right.
Caller: And you know, you know, again, it goes to the idea of connection, that human beings need to connect, and I certainly need it. And you know, it’s something I’ve become accustomed to, you know, ’cause I also work with, teaching youth classes, so you know, sometimes I’m – I was teaching up to four or five classes a week.
And the benefits for me were events and then to, you know, just having, being cut off abruptly and not really having that I know I’ve had some of it, and that it’s a form of it through mail and in some of our youth classes we have been able to do Skype or Microsoft teams and have been able to do them over the phone. So there’s been a bit of a connection there, but you know, I – I find that I’ve missed it, I’ve missed that in-person connection, and there’s definitely been a hole left in my, in my life because of it.
