When Caterina Spinaris relocated her psychiatric counseling practice from Denver to Canon City, Colorado, she noticed a change in her clientele.  Many of the patients in her new locale were corrections officers who hailed from the horde of surrounding prisons.  While the COs names and faces were different, their stories were much the same: working in corrections had taken its toll on them and, sometimes, their families, too.

The stress that these corrections officers faced every day on the job had begun to poison their familial relationships and seep into other aspects of their lives, Spinaris found out.  Some had been scarred by events they had witnessed at work, like executions or assaults, while others found it difficult to shift back-and-forth between being hard-nosed detention officers and loving mothers, fathers and spouses. 

"People kept coming to me, spilling their guts and sharing with me what they were experiencing," Spinaris said.  "I started feeling a lot of compassion for them--my heart started going out to them."

As the COs stories unfolded like different versions of the same novel, it became clear to Spinaris that pain and stress often coincided with working in corrections.  After practicing in Canon City for a couple of years and feeling a pull towards her patients who were corrections officers, she created Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, a non-profit organization aimed at helping COs cope with the pressures of their jobs.

"People have no idea what these guys encounter as a daily routine," Spinaris said.  "We don't have a clue what's going on behind those [prison] walls."

Within the confines of correctional facilities, staff members can be exposed to danger, brutality and negativity, which can greatly impact the way they live their outside lives.  Desert Waters is an attempt to help COs recognize how their work environments affect them.  It also teaches staff how to deal with the physical, mental and spiritual consequences of a career in corrections.

"[Corrections officers] don't realize how affected they are [by their jobs] because they keep it together--they have to," Spinaris said.

Spreading the Word About CO Stress

To raise awareness about the effects that working in corrections can have on officers, Desert Waters provides trainings in both correctional facilities and communities.  Ultimately, the non-profit seeks to help not only COs better understand the internal bi-products of their occupations, but, also, their families and the general public, too.

"[People] don't see the courage of these people and their stress," Spainaris said.  "On the whole, people have corrections staff in their blind spot."

Since January 2003, Spinaris' mission has been to launch corrections officers and their struggles into plain view.   Her first step has been to administer trainings in Colorado and Wyoming, at churches, prisons and community corrections centers, wherever she can set up shop to get Desert Waters' message out.

At these trainings, Spinaris covers topics including anger management, anxiety management, leadership and corrections fatigue.  By discussing these issues, she hopes that corrections officers will begin to understand how their job impacts them and others around them.

Brent Parker, Regional Volunteer Coordinator for the Colorado Department of Corrections and President of the Colorado Criminal Justice Association, attended one of Desert Waters' trainings last year and felt that it was a beneficial, especially when he learned from Spinaris how his occupation can potentially affect his family members.  He also took away from the training new ideas about what causes job-related stress.

"I've always thought of myself as a fairly good coper, but I walked out of there with some good insight about what causes stress," Parker said.  "It was good to [hear] how other people saw stress or didn't see it.  I think we are blindsided a lot," he added.  "For those people who work directly with offenders all of the time, you don't even see the stress you're involved in."

According to Spinaris, after working inside a correctional facility for a while, that inconspicuous stress can slowly chip away at a person's very core.

"A person's world view changes.  [It] starts getting darker," Spinaris said.  "They've learned not to open up."

By keeping things bottled up inside, like the problems COs are having at work with inmates or other officers, their families can start to suffer, too.

"They're bursting inside.  They want to talk [about what is going on at work], but they don't want to upset their families.  They don't want to scare them.  After a while they become strangers," Spinaris said.  "[We] need to start bridging that gap."

Avoiding Anger At Work

Another gap that needs bridging is the one that develops between corrections officers and their co-workers, Spinaris explained.

"People [in corrections] are so stressed and pushed," Spinaris said.  "They make each other's lives not very easy sometimes."

To give COs the skills they need to deal with their co-workers and inmates, especially when the atmosphere inside the prison becomes tense, Spinaris teaches anger management and interpersonal skills during some Desert Waters trainings.

Spinaris believes in teaching COs, piece-by-piece, what they need to do to avoid losing their tempers in the workplace.  She shows them how to catch themselves before acting out and how to change their thinking so they have fewer emotional reactions to incidents.

"[We] try to make it like a cookbook recipe, so they can start implementing the tiny, tiny steps," Spinaris said.  "[The goal is] getting people to reconcile as a team and watch out for each other."

While Spinaris shows COs how to approach intense situations without losing their cool, she also recommends some things they can do during their off-time that will keep them calmer when they encounter stress at work.

"I really push exercise a lot," Spinaris said.  She encourages COs to work out after their shifts rather than just going home to watch television or drink alcohol.

Also, Spinaris said, eating healthy is important.

"You can not live on doughnuts.  You need good, healthy food because your body is wearing itself down," Spinaris said. 

Staying Stress-Free During Tough Times

Maintaining good physical and mental health becomes especially important when corrections facilities are understaffed and overcrowded, forcing COs to work more shifts and longer hours.

"It's down to beyond bare bones [in most corrections systems]," Spinaris said.  "Even the bones are being taken away little by little."

As corrections officers' responsibilities increase and their jobs become more strenuous due to budget cuts and overcrowding, the importance of organizations like Desert Waters is growing.  In fact, Spinaris will be presenting her staff wellness curriculum at the American Correctional Association's 134th Congress of Correction this summer in Chicago, Illinois.  She hopes this presentation will increase awareness about Desert Waters and help the two-person organization to expand its programming into different areas of the country.

Until then, though, Spinaris will continue her Colorado-area trainings, providing CO's there with the skills they need to cope with the stresses of their jobs.

"I don't think it has hit the awareness of others [that corrections officers are suffering]," Spinaris said.  "I don't think they're getting it yet that these people are squeezed to the very last drop."

Desert Waters' mission is to get that word out there and lend a helping hand to COs who are stressed.

"I am still in the healing business," Spinaris said.  "I want to impart relief, heart change and encouragement."

Resources:

To learn more about Desert Waters, call (719) 784-4727 or go to www.desertwaters.com

To contact Brent Parker, call (719) 269-4213