Episode 136

so that’s cool we’re dismantling the Cradle to prism pipeline through education and that’s what education looks like to us that’s how people find long-term recovery is you paint a picture of a world that is exciting that they can see themselves within see themselves our mission is to dismantle the Cradle to prison pipeline for children of color and children in poverty through education
hey everybody and welcome to another amazing exciting and of course enthusiastic episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly Chris Burns founder and president of Peaks recovery today I am joined today by one of my favorite humans in the world Nicholas Dara he’s our community Lea Zone Nick grateful to have you on the show thank you thank you I’m so happy to be back I love it here I’m so excited once again he’s been a premier guest and now he’s going to help me host a little bit talk about some things we’re doing in the community um but without further Ado I wanted to introduce the community and the viewers to Regina Walter thank you for joining us Regina I’m delighted to be here yeah it’s so cool I’m not going to give you her title her background her credentials she is going to inform you about her mission and vision and more specifically her passion and Community um Regina is the founder um she is currently disrupting the Cradle to prison pipeline um through educating children of color ecoc here in Colorado Springs it is a nonprofit her executive director you don’t have your shirt on I do oh there we go ecoc Leadership Academy the quote on the front is beautiful Malcolm X quote education is the passport to the Future for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare today wow if that’s not living 24 hours at a time I don’t know what is so thank you so much for joining us Regina please ignite the viewers with why you created this how how was it informed how did you come to be so passionate about helping underserved communities well I I’m going to I’m going to tell a long story love it so I became a juvenile magistrate in 1987 I was the youngest judicial officer in the state of Colorado oh my gosh and I thought that I was above reproach in every way and I went to a conference on disproportionate minority confinement in 1995 so I’d already been on the bench at that point for eight years so I go to this conference I’m young I’m female in the sea of old white older white men which is what most judicial officers then were and I am really sanctimonious because I know that I’m not part of the problem and 3 days into the conference I realize that if you are a black juvenile male and you get arrested on possession of crap cocaine that I assume that you’re a dealer and because you’re a dealer you don’t get a substance abuse evaluation you don’t get treatment and you don’t get out of detention and there was no evidence to support that assumption and I was completely unaware that I was making it white juvenile male exact same charges I assumed you were a user and because you were user you got a substance abuse evaluation and you got out of detention and again no evidence to support the Assumption and completely unaware that my implicit bias was impacting my decision making and I knew I treated girls differently than I treated boys because that was research based but unaware of the distinction I was making based on race so I came back in 1996 and started what was then called The Fourth Judicial District disproportionate minority confinement task force and a group of concerned individuals from CA the Department of Human Services the police department public defender office the District Attorney’s office and we started looking at disproportionate outcomes for children of color exclusively in the juvenile justice system and then we started thinking uh it’s not just a problem of Juvenile Justice black children particular excuse me children of color but particularly black children if there’s a call into the Department of Human Services on an allegation of child abuse or neglect they’re more the First Response by the department is that they’re more likely to put that kid into placement than to do any inhome services and that child is more likely to age out of foster care at age 18 without permanence than their white peers so we realized that the problem was not just the juvenile criminal system it was the system across the board and so in 2007 we decided the one thing that all of our kids had in common was education and so we started educating children of color and our first educating children of color Summit took place in January of 2008 so our mission and we became a 501 C3 in 2014 um our mission is to dismantle the Cradle to prison pipeline for children of color and children in poverty through education the that task force that I started in 1996 it still exists and it still looks at issues of over representation in the juvenile court and there are more of them around the state now because of that the in ception of that or since the Inception of that program wow that is tremendous yeah I going back just a little bit the implicit bias you talked about with respect to Children of color or people of color was that more cultural than anything else or was it just the status quo how it was the status quo and I can demonstrate to you how much of the status quo it was in 1991 the man who I was married to then said to me what do do you think Colorado springs’ racial and ethnic makeup is and I said onethird white onethird Black and oneir Hispanic because that’s what I saw in my court every single day yeah and I couldn’t have been more wrong Colorado as a state is 68% white now right and so you know that we haven’t gone the other way so I was my perceptions were completely warped by what I saw in my courtroom every single day they they were and so I was a juvenile magistrate for 21 years I became a county court judge in 2008 and the issues were the same in adult in the adult criminal system and exacerbated in fact exacerbated the rate of incarceration for a black man in Colorado is 6.6 higher than than the rate of incarceration for his white counterpart it’s 2.2 higher for a Latino individual so the system across the board continues to be rif with desparate outcomes yeah so I I became a county court judge in 2008 I retired in 2019 but I’m a senior judge so now I’m like a substitute teacher I just go wherever they need me in the state and I see this same numbers play out across the state absolutely so no thank you for that it’s really really inp I think for the viewers probably for a lot of them the first time they’re hearing this type of information it’s a lot of times like you know one of the questions I’ll get to is why don’t we talk about this more I think because it’s uncomfortable but bigger than that going back to the seat that you hold as a judge what have you seen from and I have to imagine there has been some progress you’ve been at the Forefront of a lot of it um what are some of the what are some of the progression specifically to El Paso County where Peaks recovery is what are some of the progressions we’ve made over the course of your 30-year career that you can see clearly um I would not say that I would not say that Minority over representation has changed okay I would say that as a Judicial System we are we are all getting more training on implicit bias we have recently added a jury instruction on implicit bias that says try to think about this as if the person in front of you was of the same race or of the same religion and so as a system we are trying to make differences um and appropriate changes but it’s very incremental and the problems are so pervasive that um I wouldn’t say that I could point to an area that we’ve made significant changes and I’ll tell you A lot of people will listen to this and when I say the rate of incarceration is 6.6 to1 for a black individual and they might hear that as saying black people are more likely to commit crimes but I want to talk to you about a statistic that I share every time I do talk about racial and ethnic disparities and that is when you look at exonerations look at exonerations so in the entire nation black individuals represent 13.9% of our population they are 41% of the individuals who are on death row so that’s that’s death penalty I said I was going to talk about exonerations and I didn’t but that’s death penalty yeah if you look at exonerations based on DNA evidence so I think 1989 courts started recognizing the validity of DNA evidence oh and so places like the Brian Brian Stevens Equal justice initiative and the Innocence Project um started challenging cases where where there’s there is DNA evidence and there’s not in most cases where people were saying I was wrongfully convicted and about 4,000 convictions have been over overturned since that maybe a little bit more Lora Watkins for example is a black man who served 41 years for a murder he did not commit but of those approximately 4,000 cases 53% of the exonerations 52% of the exonerations are black individuals yeah who are serving time for crimes that they did not commit um 64% of the total are are individuals of color who are serving crimes serving sentences for crimes that they did not commit that’s just based on DNA evidence if you look at the at the cases that have been dismissed because of wholesale dismissals because of police or district attorney malfeasant almost 90% are people of color wow wow holy smokes so um
yeah I really like that’s a problem that is I love data I don’t have a lot of it but I have it now yeah but that’s okay that’s yeah that’s a lot and I think it really goes back to that implicit bias right and this thought that we have internally that isn’t right or wrong necessarily right as long as you don’t act on it and it’s how do you move forward in your life by knowing and it’s I think that’s the first step yeah ibram X KY his book how to be an anti I think it’s how to be an anti anti-racist one of the things that that he just he talks about is to the extent that you do nothing yeah you just let it ride you let it fly you are part of the problem Abol you perpetuate implicit bias you perpetuate these negative outcomes so to the extent that you do nothing you are part of the problem when you and there’s an Afghani proverb that I love that’s is a river is made one one drop of rain at a time so if any small change that you make has the ability to have a cascading effect so if all you do differently every day is be more mindful about your decision making so is the individual who’s in front of me this young black juvenile who’s arrested with crack cocaine am I thinking about him specifically am I thinking about his circumstances am I thinking about or am I glomming every other black child who’s ever been in front of me together or every other person who’s ever had crack cone crack cocaine if I’m not being present and mindful then the problem continues and if the only change I make in my life is to be more mindful about my decision making that’s a big change that’s a huge change and that can have that can become a river that can be become a river of impact absolutely and just gives you so much exposure to different people right which I think is helps challenge those thoughts that we keep in our brain for example I had some implicit biases towards uh people experiencing homelessness for a while in my life right the media shows them a certain way I think I’ve talked about this on the show before and I believed that that was the case based on what the knowledge I had right and I gained education I gained experience with these people and I was able to shift that thought process and be like that’s not accurate that’s not true right and I think that’s kind of that thing right like it started with a little drop and I grew yeah it’s amazing remember your raindrop yeah yeah yeah and if you can live in that authenticity because I think that’s what it is yeah um because I can remember for a lot of times even in my recovery or working in Behavioral Health where I wasn’t putting my authentic foot forward because in fear of how that might impact Community one way or another and so just standing in that authenticity to say to say today like I’m not going to get this 100% right but I’m going to try yeah you know and I’m going to make my best effort I’m going to bring really brilliant people on the show I’m going to connect with people that know this stuff we’re going to do our best that has this ripple effect as you talked so eloquently about in community that is just so relatable you know people can really connect with that so um I wanted to talk about the nonprofit and what donations actually do for individuals in community CU I think sometimes it’s Miss that like well I only have uh $200 to donate it probably won’t help anybody um and so I just wanted to and I’m going to have Nick talk about you know the opportunity we’re engaging with you and um educating children of color but first like what is the impact of these donations for viewers is we’re coming on the holidays um where a lot of us here in the United States we engage excess and privilege and a lot of things what does a simple donation do in a time like this for individuals who are underresourced okay the first thing is and this is every dollar counts we are tiny we’re a tiny nonprofit We have two halftime employees that’s all we have otherwise all of the work that we do is volunteers including me and as the founder um I act like an executive director but I’m also traveling all over the state being a retired judge so as a senior judge I just go wherever they need me during in the state but um but I will be at Panorama Middle School next week and I will be at Mountain Vista Middle School next week um so I want to talk about the things that we do and how and how donations can support but I also want to make an admonition which is that I’m still a judge so I’m not allowed to ask for money yeah okay I’ll ask okay so me too all right just wanted to make sure I got that out on the record so we have a number of programs one of them is the educating children of color Summit it t it I told you the first one took place in 2008 we had 350 people there wow amazing dang we will have we will have 1600 people at Fountain Fort Carson High School on January 25th and the Summit is for 8th through 12th graders it’s free for parents and for college students it’s free and then for people who are getting professional development credits it accounts for eight eight hours of professional development it’s 35 bucks so it’s a really cheap opportunity to opportunity to get professional development credits so we hope to have about 800 Youth and about 800 adults at Fountain Fort Carson High School it’s on January 25th everybody is invited yeah so any donation you make can help support that that event it’s a big deal we have 100 breakout sessions we have a hundred speakers from all from all over the nation and we give away a boatload of scholarships one of which is being sponsored this year by Peaks recovery centers um so in the last I told you we’re tiny we don’t have a physical location yeah we we just are in our cars doing our thing I get that in the last four years we’ve given away more than $400,000 in scholarships and educational gifts we’ll give away 88,000 in scholarships um to Juniors and seniors and undergraduate college students on the 25th will’ll also give away $10,000 in educational gifts so an educational gift is just $500 that when you get enrolled in school we give it to you personally instead of to the school so you could buy a comforter if you need to you can buy a laptop if you need to you can buy new clothes if you need to and twice now on an emergency basis we have run money up up to UCCS to pay for somebody’s parking their parking permit CU they were like I didn’t know and it’s today I didn’t know and it’s today we’ve run money up there so we’ll give away $10,000 in educational gifts we’ll give away 20 laptops and for educators we’ll give away five educator Awards so $500 for classroom enhancement wow so it’s like I don’t know if you know about the nonprofit donor’s choice but you support schools but so it’s like donor’s Choice except the recipient doesn’t even have to apply they just have to show up at the summit wow that’s so that’s the summit we also give free SAT prep classes that are online Colorado college students um Colorado college students work with individuals for 10 sessions between the summit and the date that the SAT takes place and we pay those mentors from College we also have a program and this is I I’m I want to talk about what education means to us I said for I told you about the scholarships I also told you about the summit so our goal with the Summit is that youth get exposed to Career to people in careers that they’re interested in who look like them we want them to learn empowerment skills we have self-defense classes we we have culinary arts classes the zoo is going to do a session the cheyen Mountain Zoo is going to do a session on zoology so if you want to handle the snake that’s cool well you can because you’re an adult session sorry I’m okay I don’t need that yeah there every single student who attends is going to spend time with Kingdom Builders um learning about healthy relationships beautiful and then they’ll have an opportunity every single student so they get to choose two breakout sessions have to go to the healthy healthy relationship one and then they also have an opportunity to mingle in a vendor room where they learn about distracted driving and scholarship opportunities so then for the adults our goal with the college students is to give them more skills to get on with their lives with parents it’s to learn how to communicate with your kids and how to communicate with schools and for the Educators it’s how to embrace and Inspire kids who don’t look like them weren’t raised like them don’t eat like them because most teachers are middle-aged white women and so it’s an opportunity for them to elevate their skills and to keep from pushing kids out into the juvenile justice system so that’s one way in which we Embrace education the second is or or promote education the second is the scholarship money oh I want to say a couple more things about the scholarships just because absolutely this is an opportunity to promote you have four years to use your scholarships so let’s say that you are going to a school that you have full financial aid the first year but you want to do a semester abroad the second year and your school will not cover that guess what will that’s awesome so a little bit more Dynamic it’s so Dynamic and and like I said you have four years to use it and and under one circumstance we have a kid who’s so brilliant that he’s got a full ride for his full time and he said is there a way that we can use this for living expenses and I said yes but then it becomes taxable income he said okay sure so that’s not the that’s not the norm but we are really flexible yeah okay so that’s scholarships one of the ways in which we educate SAT prep is one of the ways we educate but the other thing is we have a program called diversity University and diversity University is co- facilitated by Dr Regina Lewis Professor amerita from Pikes Peak Community College and the founder of Regina speaking and I and me and and me it’s co- facilitated by us and we have experts on topics that we are not experts on and so we have experts on lgbtq issues isues we have experts we have a an transgender educator who always participates when we address transgender issues we have people who are ability and ablism experts so Regina and I defer to other experts to make sure that we’re not telling somebody else’s story so we facilitate diversity University which is we’ve had students as young as 17 and as old as 84 a 10 and it’s all about looking at your implicit and explicit biases yeah and how you can leverage your power to increase equity and Justice so that is one form of Education that educating children of color is about then finally we have the leadership academy and the leadership academy is a program that is for the full academic calendar year we have mentors from Colorado College UCCS Pikes Peak and CSU Pablo and we meet with kids primarily in southeast Colorado Springs but we also have a cohort in D20 um we meet with kids from 13 schools I believe and work on work on increasing leadership skills exposing them to career opportunities what it takes to get into college how you maximize your high school and middle school career we actually have six middle schools eighth graders all all all of our participants from middle schools are eighth graders from Harrison School District 2 so we have this Leadership Academy and that’s one way we embody education and then this summer for the first time ever we had summer versions of the leadership academy so we had eight we had 608th GR ERS from District 11 who we had a a stem week with them cool that they learned about the life cycle of butterflies they yeah and and then we also had a summer version of the leadership academy with 25 um high school students from Harrison and Sierra where they learned to become restorative justice practitioners yes so that’s cool we’re dismantling the Cradle to prison pipeline through education and that’s what education looks like to us yeah and that is like I certainly couldn’t have said it better myself but that’s how people find long-term recovery is you paint a picture of a world that is exciting that they can see themselves within see themselves I can be a part of this with you that’s the because I’ve been told my parents have been told and their parents have been told throughout Generations that this isn’t for you yeah wow that gives me chills yeah cuz it was old man Steve and Alcoholics Anonymous who said that I could live in this world with you all and I was like I believed him yeah tremendous what you are doing in community Regina um grateful to be connected with you um and share in some of this and you let me know where my service position can be and you’re nonprofit and I’ve talked to Dr Marissa Prince multiple times I’m like let me go to the high school kids I want to hang out high school kids um I am passionate about your cause and so much so I want to just turn it over to Nick a little bit about the opportunity that we’re engaging with this year and hopefully years to come hopefully this can be an annual thing maybe a semiannual as we begin to move into a new season um of Peaks recovery so I want to turn it over to niy and how we engage with the opportunity sitting in front of us today and also Dr Marissa Prince is the director of the leadership academy and has very significant role at your organization yes she does our Clinical Director and a good friend of mine we lucky it was a recommendation from him to that’s right yeah yeah so we’re so fortunate this year to be able to sponsor a $2,000 scholarship for somebody uh working on their undergraduate in human services and that so aligns with not only your guys’s mission to provide this education and help change that pipeline right but also with our mission right which is to change the treatment history or treatment industry I mean and I think it was just such a beautiful opportunity that we can really go hand inand and show up as part of this community that has done so much for Peaks right by allowing us to be here and that we’ve been able to integrate into for the last 10 years and be a part of and now we’re in this beautiful opportunity to show up for people who might not even need treatment right but we’re still here in Colorado Springs showing up for the community and being as helpful as we can be it’s a beautiful thing I love that yeah and I love prevention behind it cuz it’s like it’s so preventative like let’s move in we don’t actually have we can inform thriving absolutely instead of surviving which is so cool about what you do like let’s not wait for this thing that’s the point the leadership academy look at this oyster that’s open to you look at it yeah and it’s so true I mean I think even at my own recovery story right like there was a time when I was like I’ll never be able to be sober this cannot be the life for me was told once you do certain drugs that’s who you are that’s what it’s going to be for you right once you get a felony your life is over it doesn’t matter what’s you’re never going to get an apartment you’re never going to get a good job you’ll never be able to get in college Etc and by having Chris actually be like you can have this life right I have experiences similar to yours and you can get to the other side of it was like the eye openening moment for me and I think it’s probably the same feeling it feels the same for people that we’re working with in this way would you agree I I would agree and some people it one thing that’s interesting to me is I told you the educational gifts are door prizes so more than once I’d say at least eight times a kid has called me and said I never thought about going to college but this $500 I felt like I couldn’t leave it laying on the table cuz I could only get it when I enrolled in school and guess what I’m about to graduate so isn’t that great so cool amazing yeah and and you get to inform you know a lot of F I know even for myself included um had a view with respect to law enforcement and the judicial system in general and it was a pretty negative view yeah I don’t have that negative View today because it’s been informed through quality individuals who direct and guide that system um and you’re one of them you’re welcome and so for these young kids to see who may have a little bit of dis quite a bit of distrust for law enforcement and the legal system altogether you get to come in the front-facing form of a scholarship and an opportunity to thrive in a community that they didn’t think they were part of wow that’s cool so if if you have a child who might be interested in law school there will be sessions um law school yes we can is a program out of Denver that Christ CHR Ina Jud um federal judge Christina aruo who graduated from Coronado High School that she started that mentors kids in college through law school so if if you’re interested if you have a kid who’s interested scholar who’s interested in law and then there will be a law a legal panel also at the summit so um judges of color attorneys of color again so that our kids can see themselves reflected in potential careers absolutely that’s so helpful you know I I remember sitting there and being like did you do drugs then I can’t talk to you yeah you know I can imagine for somebody uh from those communities would have even more edges to them with respect to trust and who can show up and inform anything for me so I love that you’re doing that it’s it’s be it takes a lot of presence um and what a grateful opportunity it is to have you on the show today before we let you go I know we’ve been telling stories for an hour before we started we could do it forever I was sitting in a coffee before this I said I’m going to go sit with um a human who was a judge for 30 years and I want to ask her if Tupac’s death was a setup and he’s like are you really going to ask that and I was like and I did so I can tell you her answer but before we get out of here what is see I tend to believe that this resource you’re providing in the community is only going to be Colorado Springs and Colorado driven for a temporary period of time I believe things like this have a contagious way of spreading throughout community and people connect with it because it’s authentic real and people know we need it yeah so for you what is your dream for educating children of color and disrupting the Cradle to prison pipeline so I have I have two that are just really simple I’d like to be able to pay for a full-time executive director because we really need need someone who can go out into the community and spread the word because the second part of that dream is that we need to be people need to know about us and despite the fact that we’re going into the 18th Annual educating children a color Summit people still say I’ve never heard of that or I’ve never heard of you we want to become so um known in the community that we can expand we’ve been asked to replicate it in Massachusetts we’ve been asked to replicate it in Nebraska we’ve been asked to replicate it but we’re we’re tiny yeah and so without and and it’s hard to this is this sounds like it’s whining it’s hard to apply for money if you’re if you don’t have a full-time executive director and it’s hard to be a presence if you’re not able to be you don’t have a full-time executive director so that’s our goal to have a full-time executive director and to become renowned and then once we’re renowned to ex spread to to expand the reach we’ve had kids attend the summit from Wyoming and from New Mexico and one year somebody complained because we didn’t spread the word in Kansas and I like dang sorry sorry could could you do that for us in the future could you would you so but in our own Community we are not known yeah and so we really that’s the goal is we want to be known because that will increase our impact that’ll increase our reach I will tell you that this year we turned away 110 kids for the leadership academy because we don’t have capacity we can take about 20 kids per school because we just don’t have capacity beyond that yeah would love to have a Leadership Academy with 440 kids instead of 330 and if that Leadership Academy then expanded to 3,000 kids that would be amazing and if it expanded to Wyoming and and New Mexico I’m pointing in directions I have no idea pretty sure that’s what you’re close yeah it’s like a I always get yeah Kansas so we would love to be able to expand what we’re doing because disproportionate minority confinement exists in every state in the nation and despar outcomes in terms of poverty in terms of school discipline in schools in terms of school attainment in terms of college graduation in terms of Juvenile Justice and criminal justice exist everywhere in the nation and we want that to stop and that’s the Big Goal I talked about little tiny goals just for us to be more more visible our goal is for every kid to reach their full potential and to to dismantle not to dismantle the Cradle to prison Pipeline and that’s the goal beautiful I love it we’re making a huge uh huge step today as we get this information out to our listeners I definitely would love to bring you back after the summit oh fun and bring you on for kind of a multi-layered approach so we can continue to inform the community and our viewers and have pretty big reach of who and what you are and and what the opportunity is for children to begin to thrive in these communities so if you I want your I want your listeners your viewers to mark their calendar for and register for January 25th for the educating children at color Summit January 25th but diversity University will take place the week of June 23rd it is a 40h hour commitment it is a full work week it’s cheap it’s 80 bucks um it’s 80 bucks and it’s 40 hours of professional development but it is life altering and then diversity University 2 I think will take place maybe like July 9th okay and that is three so the first is the full week the diversity University 2 is is three days and amongst other things what you do is complete an um Intercultural development plan um that’s kind of cool it is cool also what’s cool about it is that I know that most most of us think that we’re more enlightened than we really are and so that that particular inventory that particular inventory makes you confront that issue I actually felt that on your website it almost felt experiential is yeah in like as far as the leadersh uh uh the leadership thing um where it could be life-changing yeah is there some experiential in there oh completely okay Co yeah yeah I love me experiential yeah yeah if you don’t leave feeling like you’ve been run over just about every single day you haven’t been doing the work I love it that’s my kind of That’s my kind of show right that’s right so yeah and I’m sure with Dr Mera Prince there too doing it I’ve done a cultural diversity training with her at a previous employer and it was phenomenal amazing excellent we let it together it was so fun yeah that’s cool yeah well I really appreciate you Regina Walter um really quick before we head off I know she gave us a lot of information for the viewers a lot of dates but also website how do people get a hold of you how do they donate the website is educating children of col.org we’re on Facebook we’re on Instagram we’re on what else is there yeah know the bird the Twitter we’re on Facebook we’re on Instagram we’re part of the the Colorado gives campaign and the Pikes speak gives campaign and if you just Google educating children of color you’ll get to our website and lo and behold there’s a donate button on that too yeah click that thing pretty easy from there um let’s think about that as we draw into the holidays and some of us are you know um you know trying to make ends meet and then for others we’re living in excess and so just think about where we’re at in this holiday season and what we can afford to do for somebody who um truly needs it the most it’s been an honor a privilege of mine to have you on the show I know Nick as well thank you so much Regina Walter thank you one of my favorite humans in the world and becoming my second favorite human world until next time my beautiful people peace yeah bye byebye I love it