Ashlee's Story

“I’m often asked what was the hardest part of my incarceration. For me, it’s just always been the lack of a voice. I love family and my biggest fear was that I wouldn't be able to have a family. So, my sister has several children and I wasn’t able to be there for their birth or their life, or to be able to do any of those things that I… that they have forgiven me for not being there for. But, um… that really wasn’t the hardest thing for me. The hardest thing was seeing the injustice and the indignity that is put upon people and not being able to say or do anything about it.”

Ashlee is a mother and mentor who advocates for youth justice, incarcerated women, and voting rights. At the age of 17, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison. She served 21 years in the Tennessee Department of Corrections, from 1995 to 2017.

She now serves as the Restorative Justice Program Coordinator at the Raphah Institute in Nashville, a pre-petition diversion program for youth who would otherwise be referred to juvenile court. Since July 2018, Raphah has managed more than 74 restorative justice cases. None of the youth who completed the program have been re-arrested, and the victims who participated report 98% satisfaction with the program.

Note: Read this update from Ashlee, which we shared in our October 20, 2020 newsletter during Youth Justice Action Month.

Interview with Ashlee, conducted by Joann Self Selvidge for The Juvenile Project (TJP) on January 10, 2019 via phone in Nashville, Tennessee.

Joann: Tell me your name and how old you are now and give me a bit of a background of who you are and where you grew up and why we’re sharing your story today.

Ashlee: My name is Ashlee Sellars and I am a formerly incarcerated juvenile. At the age of 17, I was facing life without parole plus 25 in Knox County for a robbery and homicide charge. I had a co-defendant in this case; what I feel like guilty of was more of an inaction than it was an action. I had grown up in a severely abusive household in which I tried to leave so that I wasn’t experiencing that abuse, of course. And in that process ended up being around other individuals that were committing offenses or living a lifestyle that wasn’t really where I wanted to be but in survival mode, that’s all I really knew to be able to get myself an escape away from these things that were happening. There even actually even a point where in a few months prior to me actually going to prison, I had assaulted one of my abusers. And, I called the cops and when they arrived they found a grown man in nothing but a t-shirt and no one asked me if I was okay. Children services never stepped in. The police department didn’t say anything. They didn’t offer me any type of medical assistance or counseling or home services, nothing. It was really just kinda of swept under the rug and ignored. At which point, it just reiterated my lack of faith in all of the systems that are put in place to protect our youth.

So, in December, when I was parked in a car and my friend got back in the car and informed me that he had robbed and killed somebody that my honest, immediate reaction to that was that I was going to have to back into this household abuse. Therefore, I kept my mouth closed and kind of just kept my head down and kept along that path. My charge partner ended up telling someone who said something to the police and we were arrested. I didn't have good representation, of course, like many youth. I didn’t have a lot of family support. I think part of that was in fact the abuse that was happening in the household and this pattern of keeping family secrets and making sure that we distance ourselves from people that could shed light on those traumas. I ended up taking a plea kind of against my wishes but under kind of an emotional distress from the family. Then when I went to court, my victim’s family, I had never seen them before and they read their victims' impact statement about, you know, kind of what a horrible human being I was and how I would never change and I didn’t show any remorse and all of that stuff. I can only imagine how a father and a mother prepare to come to court and how they write a victims’ impact statement and how you compile all of your feelings of losing your only child into just a moment… of grief and opportunity because they’ve been so removed from the process. So when they read their statement and talked about what a horrible person I was, I raised my hand and said that I really had something to say and that we needed to have a conversation. That stance was not favorable in the courtroom, which, of course, they tried to get me to be quiet and I said that I had something to say. So, the lady who died in my case, her name was Cynthia, her parents agreed to meet with me and we went behind closed doors and I didn’t say to them, you know, ‘this is what happened. This is what I didn’t do. This is the trauma that was happening in my household.’ Like, it wasn’t a matter of explanation so much as I just informed them, like, I knew that their daughter’s death had saved my life. We laughed together and we cried together and we prayed together and they gave me the cross that their daughter used wear.

Joann: Wow.

Ashlee: We left that meeting arm in arm and it’s just… I never lose the magic around what that meant. They found this one item to be sentimental enough that it reminded them of their daughter and they chose that item out of everything in her life to bring to court and relinquished it in that moment of just having a human conversation with me. *cries* Um… sorry.

Joann: It’s okay… 

Ashlee: So, that was a pivotal moment for me in just realizing that every opportunity that I would have moving forward that I really wanted to keep the memory of her and do anything that I could to make sure that the youth didn’t experience the things that I had. So, I went to prison and took a plea for 25 years and… I’m sorry… *cries*

Joann: It’s okay…

Ashlee: Yeah, and so when I originally entered prison, I was extremely, uh… I had a problem with authority. I was combative. I think that I had to prove something and in the sexual abuse background I had I felt extremely defensive around male officers who would confine me isolated because I was a juvenile and couldn’t be around adults… and just learning how to, again, survive that situation and not fall victim to something else. I eventually got myself involved in education and graduated from the Lipscomb Life program with an Associates. When I came home in March 2017 after spending over 21 years in prison, I immediately reached out to juvenile court in Davidson County and said - I was living in Hamilton County at the time - I said, ‘what contacts do you have in Hamilton County’ I need to be able to go into juvenile and I need to tell my story. And I need to connect with our youth. I’ve got to do something.’ I was informed, ‘no, you’re not going to have that conversation down there. We really need you to come to Davidson County and talk about it.’ So, I came up to Davidson County and had a conversation with the court administrator, Kathy Sinback, and told her my story. She had heard my story from numerous people, be it Lipscomb alumni or other incarcerated individuals who had really seen my growth and seen my true character when times are really pushed. I told her my story of restorative justice and how that had an impact on me and she talked to me about the pilot program that they were going to start in Davidson County in which there would be a diversion for some our youth pre-petition, to be removed from the system and sent to a community partnering agency to be able to restore the harm between the youth who had harmed and the people in the community they had committed the offense against. I started working with juvenile court before I had even been out of incarceration for a year. Also, I can remember going to DC and telling my story there and…

Joann: This is Incarcerated Children’s Action Network?

Ashlee: Yes ma’am, sorry.

Joann: That’s alright.

Ashlee: And, um, joining some other advocacy groups - going to Florida, to Orlando, to work on the restoration of voting rights down there. Going to Tulsa and working with the National Council for Women and Girls and being able to mentor some of our youth in detention at juvenile and being able to work with Raphah Institute, which is the community partner that does the restorative justice piece - and just being able to be a healthy member of our society and realizing that I give all respect to the youth that we speak to and I never try to pretend that our circumstances are the same. But, I do let them know that I have been through something and even though all of our circumstances aren’t the same, we still have those moments of relatability. I can still understand some of the indignities that they go through in being in detention and not having a voice. It’s weird how that stuff is so predominate and that doesn't change. So being able to have them look at me and say to me, ‘wait a minute, my life is not over because I did this thing and I can apologize to somebody and really just take accountability’ has really just been life changing. 

I am able to, uh, I’ve been trained in restorative justice and I am able to do restorative community conferencing with our youth and speak with the victims involved in all of these networks to really be able to look at the needs that they have and relate to those as well.

Joann: So, tell me, uh, like, give me a little background about the organization that is the community partner and how long this project… you mentioned that Kathy Sinback had told you this was a pilot program? How long…

Ashlee: Yeah, the.. I’m sorry…

Joann: Go ahead. Tell me more about that.

Ashlee: Sure. So, restorative justice has been happening around the nation for centuries whether we realized that that’s what it was or not. You had individuals that were first on this land creating circles and having conversations and repairing their communities. Then, we changed that in you had just communities that would drag kids down the street to go speak to the person that they committed an offense against. As communities, we kind of circled around our youth to do the best things for them and hold them accountable. So, Judge Calloway had heard something about the restorative justice that was going on in Oakland, California through Impact Justice and decided to have conversations with the community partners here in Davidson County, be that the Mayor’s office, with support of the Mayor’s office, the police department, the public defender's office, the DA, like, all of these entities have come together and said we want to explore more of what this would look like for Nashville. All of those individuals went out to Oakland and went through Impact Justice Restorative Conferencing out there and decided this is something that we could do in Nashville. So, they partnered with the Raphah Institute as the community agency that would facilitate all of these conversations. The thing that is different about the Raphah Institute is that nationally is that it has support of all of the system partners with regard to criminal reform, or criminal justice, as well as being victim-centered. So, they go directly to the people that have been harmed and say, ‘would you be willing to participate in this? We want to make sure that your voice is heard. We want to make sure that we address all of the needs that you really have in helping repair this damage.’ But in that conversation about what victimization looks like, we also realize that all of our youth, or I will say the majority, of our youth have all been victims of some sort. And so, in order to repair our community we have to see that victimization across the board and what services everyone needs to be able to come together and be whole.

The pilot program started July 1 of this year. We are committed to take 24 cases within this first year to really see if this is sustainable, how it affects our community.

Joann: Can you spell the name of the institute for me?

Ashlee: Certainly. It’s r-a-p-h-a-h. It’s actually a Hebrew word that means ‘to mend’ and ‘to heal.’

Joann: Awesome. So, it started July 1, 2018?

Ashlee: Yes ma’am.

 Joann: And this is specifically focused in the juvenile court system?

Ashlee: Correct. There are certain, I don’t want to say ‘charge’ but for lack of a better word, charge or charges that are eligible to be considered. Again, it is a pre-petition situation but we are looking at felonies but they are low level felonies without any bodily injury

Joann: So, no violence, no violent crimes or offenses?

Ashlee: Not at this time, right.

Joann: Are you familiar with Common Justice?

Ashlee: I am.

Joann: I was just curious. You know, they’ve done a series called the ‘Ever After’ series and I don’t know if you’ve seen any of those videos?

Ashlee: Yeah, I follow them on like an email feed.

Joann: I saw Danielle Sered speak in New York back in September and she was pretty phenomenal. So what do you think so far? I mean you’ve been doing this now for, I imagine… what’s your role in the pilot program and how do you operate within the program?

Ashlee: Originally, I became part of the program as the Restorative Justice Liaison employed by juvenile court. I think pretty early on it became kind of evident that the skill set that I had to be able to relate to our youth and get them in a place of comfort fairly quickly, was kind of hinged on the life skills that I have or the experience that I’ve had in the past. It’s different with someone who is part of a system coming to you saying, ‘you know, I’ve made mistakes and this is what happened to me and you don’t have to be that. This is the path that you can go down.’ It changes their mindset fairly quickly. So, based in that skill set, just because of, kind of, some of the government restrictions, we felt like it was best for me to be a member of Raphah, primarily. So, as of January 1, I transferred over to work at the Raphah Institute.

Joann: Okay. Are you… I’m curious because originally, you said you had a 25 year plea deal - are you still under supervision?

Ashlee: I’m not. I was at 100%.

Joann: How old are you now?

Ashlee: I’m 40.

Joann: Okay. So, can you tell me a little bit about your earliest experiences?

Ashlee: So, as far as growing up was concerned, I was hospitalized at an early age. During that time, I had already show signs of being molested, although, I am thankful that I don’t have memories of that. The memories that I have of the first time that I had been abused are after that period of time. But for as long as I can remember, I have always suffered some type of sexual or mental abuse. I tried just to continue to avoid being that… being that I tried to become a part of other people's families. I remember it was a dear friend of mine whose family who really allowed me to be there all of the time and I did chores and I was at family dinner and I had family meetings and I did all of that stuff. But when I would go home, I became extremely isolated and tried to remove myself and wouldn't participate in anything that was related to household and that created some problems I think more so in my household. 

So, I had some runaway charges within the system. I had a vandalism and shoplifting charge. Things of that nature. Then I had an assault a couple month before I received my murder and robbery charge. I was fairly quickly transferred into the adult system and just kept on lockdown 24 hours a day, honestly. I didn't know anything about the system, so, I didn’t know anything about being allowed an hour out. I remember there were times they’d forget to feed me, I didn’t have phone calls, I didn’t have access to shower. I didn't have any of that stuff but I didn’t, I never knew that was a right or an option to be able to speak out about. They kept me housed in the medical facility part of the adult jail, which never housed anyone unless they were going to the rubber room for some type of mental health issue. I remained there until I turned 18.

Joann: Were there any other girls under the age of 18 in the facility?

Ashlee: Not at that time. At one point there was a girl that came in and they actually came and got me out of my cell and said, ‘we really need your help.’ They took me up to a different area of the facility and there's this girl standing there, she’s dripping wet standing in her uniform and then there was like this semi-circle of officers around her. From experience, they were there to restrain and um, kind of… that facility was really combative. But they did, in that instance, I don’t know who had the insight to come and get me but, I was able to speak with that girl - her name is Amanda - and get her to a place of calm. We’re actually still friends now.

Joann: Is she out as well?

Ashlee: She is. She bonded out fairly quickly.

Joann: Okay. Did you both end up spending time there though after you turned 18? Was she there?

Ashlee: No. I saw her about 19 years later.

Joann: Oh, wow.

Ashlee: Yeah.

Joann: Tell me about, um, what did you have to learn once you were in gen pop, how did things change?

Ashlee: Well, I think, you also mentioned the question around counseling and support… I don’t feel like there were ever services put in place by the system for me to be better. I worked in education for awhile and saw too often that some of the classes we were required to take would actually get facilitated by security that just got moved up because there was a class that needed a facilitator. They weren’t even trained in the class so much as they were just given a promotion into an educational spot. So, the information would just kind of be copied and passed out amongst the students to fill out on their own and then turn in and be called rehabilitation.

Joann: Was this just internal programming? Or was this part of the Lipscomb classwork? 

Ashlee: Oh, no, that’s institutional. I’d say hands above anything that ever changed my life, it was the Lipscomb program. It changed me in more ways than I can ever give credit to and I say often too that that was the first time I had actually seen the face of God. You know, I had had a lot of people come and try and tell me about God and how I’d go to hell if I didn’t do certain things. Lipscomb didn’t do any of that. They provided an opportunity for us to have betterment, be that spiritual nourishment, be that education, um, just really personal growth. They believed in us and they came out there week after week, continuing to let us know that we weren’t forgotten and that the church was not a building on the street but in our communities wherever the people are that need that relationship. I have since spoken at Lipscomb University about the power that they have and continue to consider them friends and family and quick to reach out to them if I just need a little bit of encouragement or guidance even in just some of the aspects of just how to adult. I went in as a child and I just don’t have that information and so, I am quick to just call and say, ‘Hey, how do I do this? How is this thing kind of handled?’ I am just always greeted with a smile and a hug and a lot of grace.

Joann: How long had you been incarcerated before you came into contact with the Lipscomb program?

Ashlee: I don’t keep track of time well, um, but, as I’m sure is just a defense mechanism that I just realized that that’s not… time didn’t matter so you just didn’t keep track of it. I think it was about 8 years before my release that I was able to be a part of the Lipscomb program. I had taken a couple of other educational opportunities. I took cosmetology. I was able to be a teacher's aid for the education department. So, all of that still offered a little bit of growth, but that wasn’t necessarily because of the structure so much as it was the facilitator, the direct supervisor that I had was very encouraging and allowed me to take on new challenges to try to… understanding that I hadn’t experienced that stuff before, just helped me create development issues there. Connie Seabrooks was the principal at the time I became involved with education. She’s also the individual that brought the Lipscomb program onto the campus and I give her a lot of credit for just creating a lot of opportunities for a lot of us that had extensive amounts of time.

Joann: So, the timeframe that you spent on the inside was a really pretty significant, I mean I’m assuming from the late 90s?

Ashlee: I got arrested in 1995 and I came home in 2017.

Joann: Wow. So, I’ve spoken with a couple people who have spent time during that time frame on the inside and have come out and… Can you tell me what it was like for you? What was the process like getting close to the date when you would be leaving? And what was going on in your mind and what was it like when you actually were released?

Ashlee: For a long time, I don't know that I ever considered my release. I always wanted to take my case to trial. I didn’t think that I was guilty of the charges against me. That’s not what I saw myself guilty of. I saw myself guilty of accessory after the fact even though I honestly just didn’t have the mindset to even understand what was happening. There was so much trauma going on there that it was, I was just really in that survival mode.

Joann: I didn’t ask you - what was the actual charge and what was the actual conviction sentence?

Ashlee: I was convicted of, or, I plead guilty to facilitation of first degree felony murder and especially aggravated robbery, given 20-25 years at 100% in which I had to serve 85% that. I spent 21 and 3 inside.

Joann: Okay. Sorry to interrupt.

Ashlee: Oh, that’s okay. Yeah, so I didn’t keep track of time. And then I guess, my… I didn’t have a lot of family connections. Again, I think just because of early isolation techniques that were put in place but some family members to make sure I didn’t discuss things that were happening in the household, towards the end of my incarceration, even though I have 2 sisters who didn’t come and visit regularly, but we would speak on the phone, and I remember talking to them and I was trying to figure out what it looked like and kind of making this checklist of things I needed to do. I’ve never worked! Like, I don’t have taxes. What’s going to happen when I need to retire? I’m not going to have any social security because they’ve never taken taxes out. How do I prepare for that point in my life? It was kind of this continued laughter amongst my family when I would express these things that they felt like were absolutely absurd.

Then we had to battle a little bit about the things that I wanted to do with my life when I came home. They wanted me to spend time with them and they wanted me to do kind of these things that I considered to be luxury things and I said, like, ‘I don't have time for that. Like I’ve got stuff I’ve gotta do.’ One of my family members was like, ‘you keep acting like you have a checklist, like, I don’t know why you can’t just sit down.’ And, again, I expressed, ‘I don’t have time to sit down. There are these things that I know that I’m going to accomplish and I’ve just gotta go ahead and start doing that.’ Then when they realized that I was never going to let up on the role of being an advocate that I wanted, they had said, ‘Ashlee, you spent 21 years in prison. You lost 21 years of your life.’ I said, ‘please, let me express to you that I don’t feel like I lost 21 years of my life. I feel like I have 21 years of experience that I can use to be able to shed light on the things that are happening to our people and to our youth and if I don’t use those 21 years of experience, then at that point then I have wasted all of that time.’ So, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t, first of all, remember that I could’ve never gotten out. I could’ve spent the rest of my life there. Tennessee is still one of those states that sentences our juveniles to life in prison. So, I live everyday knowing that these days are gifts and that we have people that are still there. I’m not an exception to any juvenile that’s ever gotten in trouble, I’m just an example. If we had platforms for those individuals, if we could ever get them released, to be able to tell their story and shed some of that light then we would realize that it’s widespread.

Joann: So, what has it been like since… so, you’ve gotten out and you had a list of things to do and it’s been almost 2 years. What was your release date?

Ashlee: March 2017.

Joann: So, in a couple of months, it’ll be 2 years.

Ashlee: Yeah.

Joann: How do you feel about these past couple of years?

Ashlee: Well, in trying to prepare for my release, I found a lot of difficulties in realizing the only reason that I made it through that was relationship. I didn’t have a drug history. I never been a prostitute. I didn’t have any mental health issues. I couldn’t find a halfway house to accept me.

Joann: Wow.

Ashlee: I didn’t know what I was going to do for housing. At some point someone had told me that I needed to go to the mission, which I have no idea what that looks like, but in my head I saw some kind of terror story of what it looks like to not be around males and then be put in kind of an open area and just really not have that security. So, by the grace of connection through Lipscomb, I was able to, they connected me with someone that had some real estate and agreed to rent to me. I left prison and went immediately and signed my lease on that place. I went to my sisters that evening. The next morning, I was at the DMV. I got my drivers permit and my license the same day and was in a car by myself on the way to Nashville within 24 hours.

Joann: Wow.

Ashlee: And just really kind of hitting that checklist. I had friends that said that they had served extensive amount time and they said they couldn't even go into Walmart, that they couldn’t make decisions, that they couldn’t do all of these things. So, I was like, ‘I gotta go to Walmart! Like, if this is a challenge then we just gotta go ahead and hit this out of the park! We just gotta do this!’ So, I went to Walmart by myself. I remember talking on the phone to a friend of mine and was just ecstatic about all of the opportunities that there was to shop and make a decision. I’m often asked what was the hardest part of my incarceration? For me, it’s just always been the lack of a voice. I love family and my biggest fear was that I wouldn't be able to have a family. So, my sister has several children and i wasn’t able to be there for their birth or their life or to be able to do any of those things that I… that they have forgiven me for not being there for. But, um… that really wasn’t the hardest thing for me. The hardest thing was seeing the injustice and the indignity that is put upon people and not being able to say or do anything about it. If somebody look at my institutional record, it looks pretty bad and the majority of the stuff on there is all some type of advocacy work, for lack of a better word, there were certain things in place that I saw that I had a problem with and I spoke out against and received institutional repercussions.

Joann: What kinds of repercussions were you getting?

Ashlee: Segregation, you know? You lose your job. You lose your housing. You lose… and that’s stuff is important, you know? People think about a cell just being a cell and what does it matter where you are because you don’t have freedom anyway? But you become attached to the comfort of the person that you’re in the room with or the cleanliness or the safety of knowing that someone is not going to take your stuff or the freedom to be able to move around your space. Like, that’s the only thing that you have. So, it becomes extremely important and, you know, we would have certain people that would, that knew that and would retaliate so you that couldn't see people that you had built family with. Most of us are incarcerated spend more time with those individuals that we’re close to than we ever do out here with spouses or family. You know, you’re talking about being around somebody legitimately 24 hours a day for years and they become family.

Joann: When you say ‘segregation’, do you mean solitary?

Ashlee: Yeah. Both. I’ve experienced both. I was in solitary as a juvenile. I’ve been in solitary as an adult. Then you have punitive repercussions where you can be around other individuals who are receiving punitive repercussions. You’re not in the room with them but you may be able to be in a cage with them outside.

Joann: Can you describe what that experience is like and if it changed over time - your perception of it as you got older?

Ashlee: Well, again, when I first got incarcerated, I had a lot of authority issues. As a juvenile, I was put in solitary confinement. I was locked down, like I said, 24 hours a day. I would have officers come and tell me that I was never gonna get out of prison and how worthless I was and, um, and just kind of tear down your mental stability. Then, when I got into the adult… when I got into the prison instead of the jail, I had an officer that would tell me, you know, that they were gonna break me and, you know, tell me how pretty I was and what I could do for them. Then when I, of course, would speak out against that, then you would get written up for some type of infraction and given punitive time. The punitive time during that period of time, you were able to have a roommate and you would get a shower everyday. You would be able to get a phone call daily, even if just 15 minutes and you would get an hour of sunlight. Over the years that’s changed. If you were in solitary now, or even punitive, you get a shower 3 times a week. You get one hour out 3 times a week. You don’t get a phone call at all if you’re in that punitive state.

Joann: So, it’s actually gotten worse, not better, over the years?

Ashlee: Yeah, it continues to get worse. There was some stability in having officers that had been there for extended periods of time, but just due to the conditions of administration, a lot of the officers were pushed out - either the pay wasn’t good enough to support their family or they weren’t treated with respect. I did experience a lot of good officers while I was incarcerated. Early on, when they were there for extended periods of time, once the shift happened where they weren’t consistent and there was continually a turnover, those individuals were younger and younger, more disrespectful, often quite violent and just a completely different retaliatory breed of people.

Joann: Were you in the same prison the whole time?

Ashlee: I spent the majority of my time in Tennessee Prison for Women. I spent 6 months in the Mark Luttrell facility. And then towards the end of my sentence I think I spent 6 months in a Chattanooga release program.

Joann: The transitional time?

Ashlee: Yes ma’am.

Joann: I’m curious about the officers in a women’s prison. Are there more female officers? What’s the percentage you would say? Like, male/female.

Ashlee: I think it really just depended on the year. I don’t think that there is consideration around the staff but I feel like it was always more men than there were women.

Joann: So, you said that the punitive measures basically got worse over time and the, uh… it sounds to me like too, what you're saying is that the officers basically got worse over time just because they were treated badly or their…

Ashlee: Yeah, I mean, I’m sorry. Yeah, we had different wardens. Some of those wardens were respectful to officers and they would allow our officers to… it was much more beneficial when an officer was familiar with us and could say, like, ‘I can tell that person's down. Let’s check on them so that they’re not acting out. This is a different behavior.’ But you do have to have a little bit of a conversation in order to be able to make that decision. They sometimes would consider some of that being fraternizing which wasn’t the case - in some situations. But, you know.

Joann: How common was it, I mean, you said you never received… did you receive any, or, was there an opportunity to have any sort of mental health consultation or emotional support services at all?

Ashlee: I’m sure that there’s a process set up where if you want to see a mental health professional that you could probably put in a referral. I think more common than that someone else has to refer you for some type of issue that they deem to be mental health related. I didn’t ever try speaking with mental health. I saw a lot of those staff in the hallways and could tell by the way they treated other individuals that that wasn’t something I think would have been healthy for me. And that’s not all…

Joann: But it sounds like that’s something that was special and it wasn’t kind of a matter of course.

Ashlee: Yeah, and they’re so, again, they were so over assigned individuals with limited time that I don’t know if those services were always the best.

Joann: So, you have this 21 years of experience. What are the things that you draw on in terms of your personal experience the most in the work that you do now?

Ashlee: Trying to make sure that the youth know that their voice has power and encourage them to use that in healthy ways - to look at both sides. We had had a situation with a youth that had some problems around - I’m sure that you’re aware that a lot of facilities use communal underwear, so our youth said, ‘I don’t think it’s okay that I wear someone else's underwear. That’s not sanitary and I feel like humiliated doing this and this is part of my dignity.’ I was disgusted by that and I do feel like that is a dignity issue but I did not express that in that moment. In that moment, I actually said, ‘Well, can you tell me what you would do, like, in order to create a proposal? Can you tell me if you have access to policies and what the policies actually say around that? What would the organization that you would be speaking against, like, what are the reasons why they wouldn’t want to grant you that? Can we just look at all of those factors?’ Instead of it being something that is angry for them and feeling like they’re being mistreated, they were able to really do a proposal to say, like, if this is a financial thing then maybe we can get these donated from other organizations. Just really learning how to navigate a system and empower their voice and I feel like become community players.

Joann: When you were incarcerated and you were pushing back, do you feel like you were able to effectuate change with anything that you were speaking out against?

Ashlee: Um, I think that even if it wasn’t necessarily change in the direct environment or direct situation of getting somebody to see that that wasn’t okay, that we changed as an organization. Like, we changed each other. We still built more community. We were able to create those problem solving attributes.

Joann: Among your community there on the inside?

Ashlee: Yes, correct. I’m sorry, I may have to cut this short.

Joann: I know, I’m looking at the time realizing we’re getting towards the end.

Ashlee: My GPS shutdown and I’m driving around in circles.

 Joann: No, it’s important that we stop so you can figure out where you are. *laughs* Before we get off the phone today, is there anything that you really want to say that you haven’t said yet?

Ashlee: I just firmly believe that none of our children are bad. If we looked at each thing in a community aspect and listen to the voices of our kids, then we would be able to completely change all the aspects of our community. Commitment and continual care and relationships are what really change people.