Pace Learning Celebrates Tenth Anniversary of 'Life Skills' Training at Folsom State Prison

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - March 5, 2024 - PRLog -- Known as "Pace Life Skills," the Folsom training program utilizes a unique peer-to-peer mentoring structure enabling small groups of prisoners to explore skills they may never have developed prior to incarceration. Among these are building self-esteem and confidence, goal setting, expressing emotions, following directions and learning how to cooperate and build positive relationships with others.

"I've watched these guys come into our prison and come out totally different," said Judith Ann Bishop, the Folsom State director of assignments. "The PACE facilitators 'walk the walk' and, as Michael Jackson once said, help the man look at himself in the mirror."

Though the PACE training program is voluntary, it requires a minimum 13-week commitment from inmates. The training includes weekly group discussions, mandatory homework, essay writing, and one-on-one conversations with facilitators throughout a 25- module course. Many of the inmates repeat the training over a period of years to eventually graduate and become course facilitators. Several who have graduated go onto careers in counseling and social work. Unlike technical or college courses, or even conventional 2 therapy, the PACE program focuses on self-management (sometimes called "soft skills"), a process of listening, reflecting and role play.

"The secret is demonstrating, internalizing, and incorporating these 'soft skills' to become part of who you are," said Dr. Susan McKee, an Alabama-based educational psychologist and the co-founder of Pace Learning Systems. "These skills oftentimes are difficult to measure," she continues. "But when you do measure them, it's seeing changes in thought patterns and the ways you react to people and how you think about yourself," she says.

The results are transformational both inside and outside the prison system, according to Kevin Hill, a PACE lead facilitator at Folsom State.

"What sticks out in this program is its relatability," he said. "In all the years I've been in this institution – 28 years – we have been taught survival skills... that we've never talked about before and feel safe among each other – well, it's impactful. Transformational."

Pace Life Skills curriculum (https://pacelearning.com/lifeskills) is now disseminated in more than 100 US correctional institutions, among them the California prison system and institutions in North Carolina, Alabama, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. (https://pacelearning.com/pace-in-corrections/)