At the annual National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) North Carolina conference, Cierra Cobb led a workshop on mental health in prisons. Unfortunately, prisons are unprepared to meet the mental health challenges of incarcerated people. The mental load of incarceration is an enormous burden.
Cierra presented about utilizing equity, inclusion, and diversity lenses to develop better mental health practices in the carceral system; shared important data; and introduced a holistic, self-guided mental health program developed by her husband, Jeffrey Cobb, who is currently incarcerated.
Cierra and Jeffrey are also hoping to start implementing this program inside of prisons.