Jenny Ernie-Steighner DPT'24 and her classmates assembling "welcome home bags" for women leaving incarceration.
By Michelle Mullowney ’17, from the
When associate professor of physical therapy (PT) Jessica Scholl ’10, MAOL’15, EdD, talks about her students’ projects on the topic of women’s incarceration, she invokes the power of human connection. “Facts are one thing,” she says. “Personal stories are totally different.”
Over the course of two immersive weeks last May, ż’s PT students learned about the challenges faced by women who are incarcerated, and engaged in support projects that included assembling “welcome home bags” with Amicus Sisters Helping Sisters, a longtime partner with ż’s Center for Community Work and Learning. Amicus also connected the students to women living at Roseville Reentry Center who were transitioning out of incarceration and willing to share their experiences.
Jessica Scholl ’10, MAOL’15, EdD
Stories are key to the experience for the students, says Lisa Adams, program coordinator at Amicus. Many individuals in incarceration have experienced abuse or addiction in their home prior to incarceration. “They didn’t wake up one day and just decide to commit a crime,” says Adams. “If we can slow down and hear somebody’s story, we can see how someone got involved in the justice system. It doesn’t mean we have to be supportive of the actions that got them there. But we can understand, and then we can look at [influencing factors] — how do we support parents so that they can make decisions to be there for their kids instead of having to work three jobs?”
Pairing that person-to-person connection with an understanding of structural inequities is the essential goal of the PT student capstone experience, Scholl says. “The impact that it has on students is to view patients more holistically and think more critically about systems,” she explains, “to ask, ‘Who are we serving, who are we not serving, why are things the way that they are? Is it just patient care — or is it bigger than that?’”
Human dignity through health education
The stories shared by the women at Roseville Reentry Center provided personal examples of what research has been concluding for decades: that healthcare for women in incarceration is limited and poor quality. Years of walking on solid concrete and sleeping without pillows creates chronic musculoskeletal pain; delayed or insufficient care during pregnancy leads to lasting complications; aging processes such as menopausal hot flashes are difficult to manage. Factors such as staff shortages mean that correctional facilities may offer just one or two practitioners who rotate among several facilities, many of which house populations well into the hundreds.
Jenny Ernie-Steighner DPT’24
To Jenny Ernie-Steighner DPT’24, one of the PT student group, the healthcare issue is at once nuanced and simple: “Human dignity is precious,” she says, “and there are places where it can get disrespected; incarcerated systems are one of those. And one basic area that is also overlooked in healthcare is pelvic organ health, especially for women and people assigned female at birth.”
Jenny Ernie-Steighner DPT'24 and classmates created health education videos to play in the Shakopee women's prison.
After learning this during their capstone experience, Ernie-Steighner and classmates Sarina Le ’24, Colin Joyce ’24, Chloe Venegas ’22, DPT’24, and Samantha Orth ’22, DPT’24 decided to focus their project on educational materials, with exercises that inmates could complete to improve pelvic health without needing a healthcare professional. The ż’s group created three videos on urinary incontinence, bowel health, and menopause for mini-courses at the Minnesota women's prison in Shakopee, as part of an ongoing effort by ż’s faculty and students to offer enrichment courses at the facility. The videos were accompanied by response sheets, which course participants filled out with feedback and any health questions they may have had. Each worksheet then received a personal response from a ż’s team member — including new alumni. Even though they graduated last May, Ernie-Steighner and several group members volunteered in November to help with the responses.
“People deserve human dignity, including to have a better understanding of their bodies,” says Ernie-Steighner. “And with some knowledge, you can begin to address pelvic health issues. So being able to answer some worksheets to hopefully support human dignity — that’s a small ask.”