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Gavilan College’s Higher Aspirations Program offers students who were formerly incarcerated and those impacted by incarceration a means to remove obstacles that could keep them from focusing on their education. Through peer counseling and financial assistance, the program helps students with basic needs such as housing, mental health and food insecurity.
“We serve formerly incarcerated students such as myself,” said Program Specialist Hector Barrios. “This is a safe space where, no matter what has happened in the past, they can build on it and be a better person in society.”
The program began in 2019 and offers monthly counseling and access to peer mentors who help build trust and support. Financial assistance is available, covering the cost of all books needed for classes; $200 per semester for educational needs such as internet access; $250 per semester for education-related items; and $150 in monthly grants to students who meet engagement requirements.
Students who meet the eligibility requirements can also receive financial support for certain certificate programs, which can exceed $1,000. Rental assistance is also available. Students can access the Gavilan Food Pantry and receive a $150 monthly allowance at campus food stores.
Barrios said his experience in the legal system helps him understand the needs of the program’s students.
“I’ve been through prisons,” he said, “and I messed up a lot. Part of it is not a lack of guidance but a lack of programs like this. We are making an impact by bringing these resources to the students and supporting their dreams.”
About 100 students are currently enrolled in the program. The minimum duration is one year for students seeking a certificate and up to three and a half years for those pursuing a degree.
“As long as they come to school and take classes,” Barrios said, “we will support them. We have about an 85% retention rate, and we graduated seven students last semester—13 the semester before that.”
According to Robb Rodriguez, a juvenile justice program coordinator at Gavilan’s Hollister campus, the program aims to connect with people who are still in a correctional facility to create a transition plan.
“Ideally, we start the process three months beforehand,” he said. “We talk about school, housing, and things that we can help with and connect them to resources we don’t have on campus through our partners within the community.”
Rodriguez said the program encourages students to participate in nonacademic activities such as welcome-back events, vision board activities, movie nights, and healing circles.
“A big piece of it,” he said, “is to surround them with people trying to do positive things with their lives. We give them a place to share their experiences and talk about things that otherwise they wouldn’t talk about, to get some emotional depth they wouldn’t get in daily life.”
Peer counselor Jessica Reid said her interest in participating in the program stemmed from her own experiences with the legal system.
“It allows me to understand the type of service I want to offer other people,” she said, “and it explains why I want to do it.”
Reid said the No. 1 practical concern is that students are able to afford their books. In a larger sense, she said she wants them to know that things will be OK and that they are going to be in a safe place.
“They see me as a regular person,” she said, “and they open up to me about their personal lives. They come to me for support, for somebody to talk to, for somebody they can vent to and just get help navigating the system.”
One of the challenges, Barrios said, was for the students to defeat the “imposter syndrome.”
‘Power of community’
“Some students feel like they don’t belong,” Barrios said. “They feel they don’t deserve this, and some of them just want to give up. I was there, and I’m probably still working on it, too. So I get them really excited. Like, ‘You made it through. You’re doing good, man. This is for you.’”
On April 14, Gavilan College President Pedro Avila will take the program’s students to the Granada Theater in Hollister to attend the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival showing of “Grillo,” a documentary that addresses many of their issues.
“This is an issue that is very close to my heart,” Avila said. “I do see how hard our students in that program have worked, and I think for them to see people who have lived through these experiences and had success is important because it gives them hope.”
The film follows David “Grillo” Amodio, a formerly incarcerated man who left a life of gang violence and addiction in East Los Angeles through the help of Father Greg Boyle and Homeboy Industries. It addresses the cycle of recidivism and “the power of community and second chances in rewriting one’s destiny.”
Director Dima Puchkarev said the biggest obstacle for the formerly incarcerated is trying to reestablish their lives after leaving prison or being on parole.
“You have to have a place to live,” he said. “But you can’t get a job because you have a criminal record. No one wants you back. They need re-entry services to get some emotional and financial support.”
Puchkarev estimates that 1 million people are released from prison in California annually, and said programs like Higher Aspirations are desperately needed.
“There is little intervention being done while the person is incarcerated,” he said. “We need to let people in jail or coming out know that there are places where they can get this kind of help—and that they deserve it.”
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