Student Awarded Schweitzer Fellowship
Madison Hammett, a student in the joint MSW/MPH program, was awarded a Schweitzer Fellowship for the 2016-2017 year. The prestigious Albert Schweitzer Fellowship immerses a select group of graduate students in an experiential learning and leadership development program designed to more effectively address the health needs of underserved people.
She interned with Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) managing cases during her first year in the program and has begun work on her Fellowship with them to create a class-based program for mothers incarcerated in Cook County Jail. While working as a case manager she worked with attorneys helping incarcerated mothers initiate short-term guardianship agreements for family members or close friends take care of their children while they were in jail. The relationship between the guardian and the mother is key for the mother to be able to be reunited with their children.
During her work with CGLA Hammett discovered that many incarcerated mothers had been diagnosed with a mental illness and had received medications for it while incarcerated, but no explanation of their diagnoses. For example, when asked during an initial interview whether they had been diagnosed with a mental illness most mothers said no, but in a follow up question reported as to whether they took any prescription drugs, they reported had been given prescription medications, and the medications given to them were those used to treat mental illnesses.
This information led Hammett to tell the women what the drugs were for and she realized that when the women are released they would not know how to take care of themselves, have no access to their medications and no recommendation for physician care. She needed to be able to assure the mothers that their mental health status would not impact their parental rights, as the greatest fear many of the mothers had was that they might lost their children.
Hammett also observed that women who have been separated from their families and in jail were already under a great deal of stress. Those with underlying mental health issues were prone to a cycle of depression with the possibility of being released only to be returned to jail for committing another mental health-related crime. She has already developed a reentry packet that lists places where parolees can go to receive medical services, where they can get clothes and halfway houses for those mothers whose families live in public housing or have been denied access to their children.
It is Hammett’s hope that the class and materials she creates for these mothers will be carried on by CGLA. She notes that the agency takes a holistic approach to their clients and incorporates strong social services into the legal environment and have community organizers on staff, so she believes that over the longer term her program will have a measurable benefit in the lives of these incarcerated mothers.