The focus of the upcoming Nehemiah Virtual Reentry Conference, which will be held Thursday, Sept. 10 and Friday, Sept. 11, will be on the impact of incarceration on youth and family.
“We know that when a person is incarcerated that it doesn’t just affect them, but it also affects the whole family in multiple different ways,” Anthony Cooper, the vice president of re-entry and strategic partnerships at the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development, tells Madison365. “Being able to navigate those systems and come up with different strategies with some our thought leaders in the community who have lived experiences.
“People in our community really need to see what these families are going through. No one wants to be incarcerated; no one wants to go back and forth, in and out of prison,” he adds. “Some of it is because of the assistance that they lack when they come back into the community. They don’t have the proper support. One of the things that we don’t talk about enough is that this is a community issue and it is tied to poverty, homelessness, joblessness and lack of job opportunities.”
Nehemiah Center For Urban Leadership Development serves the under-resourced population of the greater Madison area with a primary focus on at-risk African American families. Nehemiah addresses the needs of the entire family by focusing on spiritual issues, economic needs and academic success.
The Second Annual Reentry Conference, which has shifted to the online universe due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will include experts in the field joining together with people of lived experience to address the reentry process to support success for the community as a whole.
“As we’re talking about bridging the gap and the state of the criminal justice system, we were very strategic about the speakers we would have at the event,” Cooper says.
Cooper, the city-county Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award in 2019. will deliver the welcome at the event. One of the main speakers will be Dominque Gilliard, director of Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation for the Love Mercy Do Justice (LMDJ) initiative of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). His talk will be titled “Rethinking Incarceration: The Role of the Church in Ending Mass Incarceration.”
“He will be really talking about the role of the church in ending mass incarceration and how they can step up and be part of the action planning in what we are doing in the community and what we can do as religious leaders when it comes to incarceration,” Cooper says. “Everyone is affected and the church is a big part of the community. It can’t be a siloed approach, so we’re really looking forward to what Dominique has to say.”
Other keynote speakers will include Kelli Thompson, the Wisconsin state public defender, who will talk about “One Conviction, Multiple Impacts on the Family” and Tamra Oman a national speaker, consultant, group facilitator, and the 2015 recipient of the State of Wisconsin’s Virginia Hart award, who will give a talk on “Hope, Resiliency and Intentional Living in Trying Times.”
The fourth keynote speaker will be Judge Everett Mitchell, a fierce advocate for education and equity who was elected to the Dane County Circuit Court as a juvenile court judge and presides over cases involving family reunification, juvenile delinquency, and other civil and criminal proceedings.
“Judge Everett Mitchell is a phenomenal speaker and he brings a phenomenal wealth of knowledge about incarceration and the effect it has on the whole family,” Cooper says. “I’m really looking forward to listening to what he has to say. I think he’s going to hit on so many important topics.”
Beyond the keynote speakers, the conference will feature breakout sessions and panel discussions featuring Dr. Ruben Anthony, Kori Ashley, Carlos Bailey, Rudy Bankston, Frank Davis, Britt Falbo, Christine Geier, Carmella Glenn, Jean Haughwout, Jacquelyn Hunt, Alex Lindenmeyer, Alex Lodge, Alice Pauser, Albert Watson and Ryan Westergaard.
“We are going to have several different rooms and people will be able to jump into rooms and talk to our panelists,” Cooper says. “This is a time for us to move forward and be a community.
“Having the right people at the table is the key for a very good conference. I’m honored that everyone answered the call to being a part of our Re-Entry Conference,” he adds. “From our speakers to our panels, it shows that this is all about a community coming together to face these issues and to come up with sustainable solutions.
The Nehemiah Virtual Reentry Conference, originally slated for March of this year, will take place Thursday, Sept. 10 and Friday, Sept. 11. You can register for the conference by clicking here.
The goal of the conference is to both inform and analyze.
“We want to not only have conversations around incarceration but to develop the action plans that can support the individuals who are coming home from incarceration,” Cooper says.
