If you know me, you know my passion for using education as a vehicle for social justice, especially working with individuals who are incarcerated.

Last fall, I had the privilege to co-teach a college bridge course at a maximum-security facility with what became two close friends and colleagues. Afterwards, we submitted a proposal for an educational workshop to the Council on Social Work Education's 71st Annual Conference, October 23-26, 2025, in Denver, Colorado. The Conference's theme is "Championing Disability Justice and Disability Joy in Social Work."

Our proposal, "Anti-carceral Pedagogies: (In)Visible Disabilities and Fostering Mutual Aid for Adult Students Behind Bars," was accepted!

At that conference, titled we will WITH YOUR HELP lead an instructional workshop where we introduce participants to some key considerations when working in correctional/carceral educational settings, model for participants our evidence-based approaches to facilitating teaching and learning in prisons, and challenge participants to identify opportunities to apply lessons/insights in their own personal/professional settings. (A brief description and learning objectives are included at bottom!)

One huge obstacle threatens to force me to withdraw from the conference by 7/25, however--the costs of registration, travel, and a place to stay.

I need your help.

Will you lend your support to help cover these costs?

... A little more on: "Anti-carceral Pedagogies: (In)Visible Disabilities and Fostering Mutual Aid for Adult Students Behind Bars" ...

Some incarcerated students navigate intellectual disabilities. All experience and live within a socially disabling environment whose consequences follow individuals for the rest of their life (interpersonally, institutionally, psychologically). To mitigate these imposed limitations and enduring consequences, incarcerated students require disability-justice informed pedagogy that fosters caring relationships, mutual aid and interdependence.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will understand and explain the importance of best practices of teaching incarcerated students, how to facilitate critical, disability-informed, and reflexive pedagogy within a correctional facility.

2. Participants will understand the importance of countering tendencies toward instructional coercion (to identify privileges and their positive/negative use, and tropes like White Saviorism) with demonstrations of radical care/student empowerment/respecting student agency or choice and mutual aid.

3. Participants will understand the complexity of teaching in prisons compared to non-correctional classrooms–administrative rules, variety of student ages/backgrounds/needs, interpersonal relationships, learning objectives and instructional materials.

p/c: Bard Prison Initiative; photographs were prohibited in our facility.