June 10, 2024 — Vikky Urena and Faith Cochran are both PEF Division 236 DOCCS employees who work in Brooklyn and New Rochelle. Urena is a parole officer and Cochran is a parole revocation specialist. Over the years, both Urena and Cochran have noticed how their work has caused stress and harm, not only to themselves but to their fellow DOCCS coworkers. In 2022, DOCCS worked with Desert Waters Correction Outreach to offer the “Improving the Well Being of Corrections Professionals” (IWCP) course. As part of their participation with a group called One Voice United, Urena and Cochran recognized the benefits of the training and want to see it go further.
Urena is a parole officer and Cochran is a parole revocation specialist. They are based in Brooklyn and New Rochelle.
Over the years, both Urena and Cochran have noticed how their work has caused stress and harm, not only to themselves but to their fellow community supervision co-workers. In 2022, DOCCS worked with Desert Waters Correction Outreach to offer the “Improving the Well Being of Corrections Professionals” (IWCP) course. After receiving that training and seeing the help it can bring, Urena and Cochran want the training to go further.
IWCP is a “train-the-trainer” course that taught DOCCS participants how to better themselves while also teaching them how to impart this knowledge to others, who can then train more people.
“The training we took was only for corrections staff,” said Urena. “We see the same issues affecting corrections staff that are also affecting re-entry staff, senior parole officers and others. These are our workers who are working with people who may be repeat offenders, or who may have committed serious crimes.”
Urena and Cochran found that members and DOCCS employees, including themselves, have dealt with wrongful suspension, injury in the line of duty, heavy workloads and harassment.
“There are employees who have lost their lives indirectly from the stress of the job,” Cochran said.
The team of two are working with Desert Waters and One Voice United—a non-profit focused on the betterment of the corrections profession—as well as with PEF Article 18 Committee and PEF Health and Safety Department to bring a “From Corrections Fatigue to Fulfillment” (CF2F) train-the-trainer course to PEF members. The training will specifically target issues that affect community supervision staff, like parole officers and revocation specialists.
“The training will explore the psychological challenges parole officers face as a result of their jobs,” said Cochran. “It then provides self-care and organizational tools that can be used to combat the stress brought on by the job.”
Urena and Cochran have worked together to create a proposal and are working to have their first course ready by the Fall. The course is designed to be a five-day, 40-hour course. Upon completion, participants will receive certification and become trainers or co-facilitators to train more PEF members.
DOCCS Associate Commissioner James Donahue wrote in support of this training and PEF’s Health and Safety and Article 18 Committee has been working to provide the resources needed to make this training possible. Urena and Cochran both say that what they need most is funding.
“DOCCS management signed on to the idea, Geraldine Stella and the Health & Safety staff have been really helpful,” Urena said. “But we still need funding. We need the Office of Employee Relations (OER) to help.”
Cochran said that the proposal has been submitted to OER and that it details all the potential expenses that may arise, as well as why they believe the training is necessary and a complete program description.
At a recent DOCCS Statewide Labor Management Conference, Urena spoke highly of this program and caught the attention of DOCCS Commissioner Dan Martuscello. The commissioner said that he would work closely with the (OER) to make sure they get the information needed.
“I don’t anticipate any push back,” Cochran said.
“In my discussions with OER, they were very interested in using joint contractual funds for the program,” said PEF Health & Safety Director Geraldine Stella. “And they are working with DOCCS and the Office of Victim Services on processing the application.”
According to Stella, many DOCCS staff, agency directors and supervisors are already interested in the program. The team is optimistic that members will be equally receptive to the training, as DOCCS staff continue to seek ways to cope with the stress of their work.