Fourth Annual Blossoming Beyond Bars Brings Women Home To Each Other

Short N Sweet Ent

Photo Credit: Alpha Jalloh

HAMDEN, CT — “I am not my past.” Women said it, wrote it, and meant it on September 18, when they filled The Lab at ConnCorp for the fourth annual Blossoming Beyond Bars:

Women’s ReEntry Wellness Conference. Some came home years ago. Some came home

months ago. And some are still inside, joining live from Federal Correctional Institution (FCI)

Danbury.

That last part was intentional. Support for women too often shows up after release, if it shows up at all. Blossoming Beyond Bars refuses to wait. By bringing women at FCI Danbury into the room, organizers made one thing plain: you belong to this community now, not someday.

“No matter where you are in life, you can blossom.”

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Photo Credit: Alpha Jalloh

Naming the Bars That Follow Us Home

Keynote speaker Dr. Tiheba Bain, founder and executive director of Women Against Mass

Incarceration (WAMI), spoke to what so many women know in their bodies:

“I know what it means to walk out of prison and to discover that, although the physical bars

have opened, there are other bars that have followed me. You need to honor your survival, but don’t stay in survival mode.”

A panel moderated by community leader and media personality Babz Rawls Ivy brought

together Karen Tyson of Prosperity Counseling and Tracie Bernardi-Guzman of Reentry

Solutions CT, two women who lead from lived experience and know that the people closest to the harm are closest to the solutions.

Conference host and longtime advocate LaResse Harvey put it simply:

“If Blossoming Beyond Bars was available when I came home, I wouldn’t have suffered so much in silence. Blossoming Beyond Bars gives us our safe space.”

Care as Resistance

The day moved through breakout sessions on nutrition, financial literacy, expressive art, and

yoga and reflection, alongside a resource fair connecting women to ReEntry, recovery, mental health, employment, and family support services. Every woman in the room left with a purse or bag filled with personal care items and gifts. It was a practical offering with a deeper message: in a system built to strip women of dignity, being cared for is a radical act.

“We are better together.”

Photo Credit: Alpha Jalloh

Built by Community, for Community

Blossoming Beyond Bars was founded by Dr. Kevin Paulin of Winning Ways Inc., Dr. Janet

Garcia-Hallett of JGH Justice Alliance LLC, and Kevnesha Boyd, LPC of Quality Counseling.

The work is rooted in Dr. Garcia-Hallett’s award winning book, Invisible Mothers: Unseen Yet

Hypervisible after Incarceration (University of California Press, 2022), which exposes how

formerly incarcerated mothers of color are overlooked by the very systems that surveil them.

The day was documented by Tell Our Studios, a Black owned film studio in West Haven,

because keeping our stories and our dollars in community is part of the work.

Join the Movement

Four years in, the founders are inviting individuals, businesses, community organizations, and

sponsors to help Blossoming Beyond Bars reach more women, inside and out. To partner,

sponsor, or get involved, visit www.BlossomingBeyondBars.com.

Blossoming Beyond Bars: Women’s ReEntry Wellness Conference Highlight

Courtesy of Blossoming Beyond Bars

Until Next Post... Coach Tay