Advancing Corrections Journal - Edition #18 - What Is Working With Women: Correctional Practice in the Post Bangkok Rules Era (ACJ18-A004)

The purpose of the article is to present the insights used by support workers in the community who assist Indigenous women involved in the Canadian correctional system (e.g., social workers, addictions counsellors, cultural support workers). Recognizing the disproportionately high rates of incarceration and recidivism for Indigenous women within the Canadian context, the authors contend more must be done to support Indigenous women. The paper presents a qualitative arts-based study that examines support workers' experiences; specifically, navigating racists systems (i.e., corrections), engaging in accompaniment as an approach to support, and the significance of self-care. The discussion emphasizes a need for collective healing, with calls to: 1) Increase culturally-relevant services within the prison by developing and maintaining partnerships with outside agencies and Indigenous communities with women involved in corrections; 2) Reconsider the focus on rehabilitation, which is argued to be a mechanism of colonization; and 3) Create an Indigenous-women-centred place of healing.