Bringing Hospice to Prison: Val’s Story

Crossroads is extremely proud to have some of its members in Missouri volunteering to be a part of an incredible and inspiring effort to bring hospice education to reformed inmates serving life sentences in correctional facilities.

Bringing Hospice to Prisons is a four-part blog series that will serve to highlight some of the personal stories of those involved in the program through different lenses.

Val Criswell is a Support Services Director at Crossroads Hospice. She's been in this position for about four years, and she supervises Social workers, chaplains, volunteer managers and the bereavement department.

A few years ago, Val became involved with something on the side: the program working to bring hospice education to prisons in Missouri. That's when her Executive Director asked if she would be interested in joining the committee.

There, her role would largely be to explain how to prepare the offenders to deal with the emotional and spiritual aspects of end of life, as well as to help with stress management.

Val was enthusiastic about sharing the story of her involvement even further. We'll let her share it:

Crossroads: Dr. Riseman told us that he's doing this strictly as a volunteer. Is it the same for you?

Val Criswell: Yes, it's not part of my role as a Support Services Director. It’s something that I do separately. Obviously I’m representing Crossroads as one of the hospices involved in the program, but it's not necessarily connected to my specific job duty at Crossroads.

So what is it that inspires you to volunteer?

At the beginning, it really just sounded interesting. It's in collaboration with the Missouri Hospice and Palliative Care Association (MHPCA), so I thought it would be interesting to be a part of it.

Once I got into it — just seeing the need for it was the number one motivation. I've always been inspired by the Angola program down in Louisiana. It was groundbreaking. They did a prison [hospice] program and it's been going on for many years. It turned a very violent prison into one that is very humane and nonviolent. So I thought, “I if I could be a part of helping create something like that for the state of Missouri, that would be really neat.”

At the beginning of this project, our meetings were held at Jefferson City Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison in Missouri. When we got in there, toured it and met some of those offenders — and these are the worst of the worst offenders, there for life and they're not getting out — seeing their humane side. . . it just pulled at my heart.I was really invested after that.

How do the offenders get involved in this program? Being the “worst of the worst” like you said, there must be some pretty strict requirements.

If you will, they're the “best of the worst.” They can't have any infractions against them and they have to be on good behavior for the last five years.

The other thing is that what they're doing, providing care for the dying, is above and beyond their normal jobs. They still have to work their regular job in prison. So they may work all day and then go sit with a dying patient all night and not get paid for it.

What do you think makes them interested in doing this if there's no financial incentive?

We have done two now, Jefferson City Correctional Center and [Chillicothe Women's Correctional Center] — both were amazing but had two totally different feels with the population.

The men were very forthcoming and shared a lot. A lot of what we do in the training is very interactive. Some of the things we heard them say were:

• It gives them purpose.

• It gives them meaning.

• It gives them a chance for redemption.

• It gives them a chance to give back.

Many of the same reasons a lot of people who aren't in prison would do it – the offenders have the same response. It's a way for them to feel like they've been forgiven.

The director of the prison system really commends them for their humanity and giving back to their fellow inmates.

Is the idea of hospice for offenders a relatively new or unique concept?

No, I don't think it is. Angola's program has been around for a long time. Up in Maine they also have a prison program. It's not a new concept.

One of the things that we found is that in the prison system — some of them — have a “nursing home unit” (ECU) for the frail and elderly inmates. The men's prison we worked with had it. If you walked into it you would think, other than it's clearly a prison, that it was a nursing home.

They're in their wheelchairs; they've got their oxygen on. There are younger offenders who have their cells as well in that unit. They help the elderly with all of their activities of daily living: toileting, showering, shaving, those sorts of things.

Those were a lot of the offenders who signed up for the hospice program. They're already doing a lot of the personal care with the elderly inmates. Again, it was amazing to me that they were that compassionate.

What are some of the challenges that go into providing hospice for inmates?

The restrictions they have. Things that we take for granted like holding a dying patient's hand or having our families present at the time of our death. Those things may not be permissible in the prison setting.

 
Read the other part of the Bringing Hospice to Prison series, Dr. Jay Riseman's ,Beth Huliska's, and Jane Moore’s stories, here, here, and here.

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