Seeing the trauma and the pain among the youth and young adults incarcerated in one juvenile detention center was enough to propel Sam Burgett into a career of creating and providing reentry services within the juvenile and adult justice systems.
Through years of working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth and adults in prison, jail, juvenile detention, and work release centers, one thing became clear. Our justice system is not full of hundreds of thousands of bad people. We have a very broken justice system in America.
This ethnography, compiled over a span of nearly four years, provides a glimpse into the lives of a group of justice-involved young men, allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding of the individuals’ upbringings, the cards that were stacked against many of them from day one, their common desire to change, and their experiences cycling in and out of incarceration. The many trials and tribulations endured by the young men in this book provide a deeper understanding of the importance of measuring our successes in moments when engaging with and walking alongside those who are facing such adversities.
Sam Burgett is a social worker by trade and was the first police social worker in Porter County, Indiana. In 2019, she founded a nonprofit, the Community Change Center, in order to address soaring recidivism rates in Indiana. She enjoys teaching courses in sociology at a local university and facilitating trauma-informed justice response trainings in the community.
For more information about the organization, visit:
In 2017, Samantha Burgett was running a teen program in Northwest Indiana, when she noticed several of her youth demonstrating new negative behaviors after having been incarcerated in the local juvenile detention center for a short period of time. Feeling called to address the issues she was observing, Sam, along with one of her professors and a close friend, launched a mentoring program in the detention center. After running the program in the facility for a few short months, Sam began working at the agency as a detention officer and quickly noticed many gaps in the American justice system. After studying reentry programs around the world, Sam launched an intensive reentry program within the facility, working with the older youth and young adults while they were detained and, for those who were interested, as they returned back to the community. Shortly after, the opportunity arose to launch a similar group in the local prison, providing reentry programming to incarcerated adults in the community. In order to funnel more resources into the programs and to be able to offer more services to program participants, Sam founded a nonprofit, the Community Change Center, in 2019. Today, the Center operates reentry programming in local correctional facilities and provides community-based reintegration services to individuals as they are released from incarceration, including transitional living, adult education, mentoring, case management, expungement fairs, and a Unity Cafe.
For more information about the organization, visit:
Seeing the trauma and the pain among the youth and young adults incarcerated in one juvenile detention center was enough to propel Sam Burgett into a career of creating and providing reentry services within the juvenile and adult justice systems.
Through years of working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth and adults in prison, jail, juvenile detention, and work release centers, one thing became clear. Our justice system is not full of millions of bad people. We have a very broken justice system in America.
This ethnography, compiled over a span of nearly four years, provides a glimpse into the lives of a group of justice-involved young men, allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding of the individuals’ upbringings, the cards that were stacked against many of them from day one, their common desire to change, and their experiences cycling in and out of incarceration. The many trials and tribulations endured by the young men in this book provide a deeper understanding of the importance of measuring our success in moments when engaging with and walking alongside those who are facing such adversities.
Throughout my life, I often heard the question, what would you do if you were granted one wish? I was fascinated by people’s responses. What do you think the answer to this question would be? World peace? A functional family? Good health? End poverty? On the contrary, many people “said” or “replied” that they wanted to win the lottery and have all the money in the world.
This question has resonated with me for a very long time. Why do people wish for money? I could never imagine wishing for any amount of money to make me happy.
I learned when I was younger that no amount of money could bring me happiness. In my humble opinion, our life experiences, and our outlook on life define our happiness. Therefore, the only wish that I would have ever wanted was to spend one more day with my beloved father, who died over three decades ago.
My father was my best friend, my mentor, and an absolute inspiration to me. There is no amount of money in this world that could bring me the happiness that my father brought me. I began thinking about the people closest to me and if they felt the same way: if they had one wish, would they choose to spend the day with a loved one who died?
For One More Wish explores not only my personal journey through grief but also shares the narratives of those people who were courageous enough to write to me. It takes a great deal of transparency and courage to write about having one more day with the person you loved the most in your life. The amazing people in this book wrote authentically about what their day would look like while transcending through their own grieving process.
Becky Cortesi-Caruso has dedicated twenty-six years to being employed in public education. A former school social worker, she eventually made the leap of faith into school administration and is currently an Executive Director of Special Education.
Becky earned a Master’s Degree in School Social Work from the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, and another Master’s Degree in School Administration and Leadership from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.
She has devoted much of her career to assisting families in understanding the importance of special education law and advocating for students with special needs. She continues to be passionate about working with families and their children. In turn, Becky was selected by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to attend the Center for Equity Learner Equity Conference where Executive Director’s from all over the nation were invited.
Becky was inducted into the Lemont High School Athletic Hall of Fame where she was honored by her school community, friends and family. This was a great honor to Becky as she was recognized for her athleticism at the highest level.
In addition to all of Becky’s professional and personal accomplishments, she is most proud of being an author and a mother. She is happily married to her husband, Michael, and the proud mother of three children.
Becky and her entire family, including Charleigh, know the joy and inspiration that comes from exploring the world of adoption. They have chosen to share their story, Chasing Charleigh: An Adoption Story Filled with Hope and Love in hope that it will encourage others to take the same leap of faith they did and explore the complex beauty of adoption. Lastly, Becky tells a courageous and poignant story that features her daughter Charleigh in her second book entitled: Beautifully Biracial: A Young Girl’s Journey to Love Herself. This book examines the deep impact that racial discourse has on her daughter and the lessons learned throughout her journey.
Lastly, Becky is excited to announce the publication of her newest book entitled: For One More Wish, a poignant story about surviving the death of a loved one and the journey that all human beings transcend through.
Becky Cortesi-Caruso has dedicated twenty-six years to being employed in public education. A former school social worker, she eventually made the leap of faith into school administration and is currently an Executive Director of Special Education.
Becky earned a Master’s Degree in School Social Work from the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, and another Master’s Degree in School Administration and Leadership from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.
She has devoted much of her career to assisting families in understanding the importance of special education law and advocating for students with special needs. She continues to be passionate about working with families and their children. In turn, Becky was selected by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to attend the Center for Equity Learner Equity Conference where Executive Director’s from all over the nation were invited.
Becky was inducted into the Lemont High School Athletic Hall of Fame where she was honored by her school community, friends and family. This was a great honor to Becky as she was recognized for her athleticism at the highest level.
In addition to all of Becky’s professional and personal accomplishments, she is most proud of being an author and a mother. She is happily married to her husband, Michael, and the proud mother of three children.
Becky and her entire family, including Charleigh, know the joy and inspiration that comes from exploring the world of adoption. They have chosen to share their story, Chasing Charleigh: An Adoption Story Filled with Hope and Love in hope that it will encourage others to take the same leap of faith they did and explore the complex beauty of adoption. Lastly, Becky tells a courageous and poignant story that features her daughter Charleigh in her second book entitled: Beautifully Biracial: A Young Girl’s Journey to Love Herself. This book examines the deep impact that racial discourse has on her daughter and the lessons learned throughout her journey.
Lastly, Becky is excited to announce the publication of her newest book entitled: For One More Wish, a poignant story about surviving the death of a loved one and the journey that all human beings transcend through.
Throughout my life, I often heard the question, what would you do if you were granted one wish? I was fascinated by people’s responses. What do you think the answer to this question would be? World peace? A functional family? Good health? End poverty? On the contrary, many people “said” or “replied” that they wanted to win the lottery and have all the money in the world.
This question has resonated with me for a very long time. Why do people wish for money? I could never imagine wishing for any amount of money to make me happy.
I learned when I was younger that no amount of money could bring me happiness. In my humble opinion, our life experiences, and our outlook on life define our happiness. Therefore, the only wish that I would have ever wanted was to spend one more day with my beloved father, who died over three decades ago.
My father was my best friend, my mentor, and an absolute inspiration to me. There is no amount of money in this world that could bring me the happiness that my father brought me. I began thinking about the people closest to me and if they felt the same way: if they had one wish, would they choose to spend the day with a loved one who died?
For One More Wish explores not only my personal journey through grief but also shares the narratives of those people who were courageous enough to write to me. It takes a great deal of transparency and courage to write about having one more day with the person you loved the most in your life. The amazing people in this book wrote authentically about what their day would look like while transcending through their own grieving process.
During World War II, Maria received a letter from the Romanian army stating that her husband went M.I.A., and they had to declare him officially dead.
However, a letter she received from her husband, just before the letter she received from the Romanian army, drove her to believe that her husband was still alive, and his disappearance was not accidental.
Therefore, a death certificate and his dog tags didn’t convince Maria that her husband was dead, and she refused to have a funeral service for him.
From that moment on, Maria decided to wear his dog tags around her neck until she would find the truth about what happened to her husband In Odessa—and hopefully reunite with him, regardless of how difficult it might be.
Bogdan Sopterean was born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, which is located in the beautiful region of Transylvania—yes, the region where Dracula was born. In 2002, Bogdan decided to move to America. His true passion for writing came at a difficult time in his life, but at that moment, he discovered that writing books is his calling and that he will never stop writing. Presently, Bogdan and his lovely wife Natali live in Illinois with their beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter Sydney and their dog Grace.
Bogdan Sopterean was born on October 1, 1980, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, which is located in the beautiful region of Transylvania—yes, the region where Dracula was born. When he began middle school, he started to practice martial arts, which helped him to become more focused in school and helped him learn to believe in himself. By age seventeen, he was a black belt and was part of the Romanian National Karate Team.
He graduated from Nicolae Balcescu High School, where Spanish, English and Romanian were his major courses. Because sports were already a big part of his life, he graduated from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Education and Sports.
In 2002, Bogdan decided to move to America, known as the land of opportunity, where one could achieve anything they put their mind to, no matter who they are, and ever since, he looked for his calling.
His true passion for writing came at a difficult time in his life, but at that moment, he discovered that writing books is his calling and that he will never stop writing.
Presently, Bogdan and his lovely wife Natali live in Lake Zurich, Illinois with their beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter Sydney and their dog Grace.
Vova Kosinskiy was born under the symbol of the Moscow Olympics in a Ukrainian provincial town of the USSR. “I endured the hardships of the economic crisis of the ’90s and poverty, surviving through small-scale trade and self-improvement. Books were my main friends and helpers. The turning point in my life came with the 2022 War in Ukraine. I decided to become a professional writer. Since a young age, I had questioned the universe’s workings, seeking answers in books, contemplating, and meditating. Over time, answers and knowledge began to come to me.”
A JOURNEY TO THE FOURTH DIMENSION OF THE MIND is a practical work aimed to change the reality of a person based on philosophy, psychology, and esoteric. I share my experience, my successes, and my tools. For readers, this is my unique experience of diving into the depths of the mind, not only as a researcher but also as a programmer of the mind and body. A significant part of the book is devoted to the investigation of time’s influence on the consciousness of a person and the events of their life. I offer practical techniques for working with time aimed at increasing longevity and developing a sixth sense.
I reveal the principles of mind programs and their influence on human behavior, decision-making, fate, and health. I show by my experience how these programs appear, develop, and how flaws accumulate. I describe the journey of thought beyond human consciousness and its influence on matter and living beings. I believe that a person can become the designer of their mind, to correct and write new programs for the subconscious. I show how I changed one of my programs that determined my decisions unconsciously. I explore the movement of time parallel to the mind and body. I share my experience of time’s influence on my body and how I achieved results in the sixth sense development.
Thoughts and practices will revitalize the mind of the reader. The energy in these lines will bring new thoughts and solutions. The reader will come to a new understanding of the world and themselves.
A JOURNEY TO THE FOURTH DIMENSION OF THE MIND is a practical work aimed to change the reality of a person based on philosophy, psychology, and esoteric. I share my experience, my successes, and my tools. For readers, this is my unique experience of diving into the depths of the mind, not only as a researcher but also as a programmer of the mind and body. A significant part of the book is devoted to the investigation of time’s influence on the consciousness of a person and the events of their life. I offer practical techniques for working with time aimed at increasing longevity and developing a sixth sense.
I reveal the principles of mind programs and their influence on human behavior, decision-making, fate, and health. I show by my experience how these programs appear, develop, and how flaws accumulate. I describe the journey of thought beyond human consciousness and its influence on matter and living beings. I believe that a person can become the designer of their mind, to correct and write new programs for the subconscious. I show how I changed one of my programs that determined my decisions unconsciously. I explore the movement of time parallel to the mind and body. I share my experience of time’s influence on my body and how I achieved results in the sixth sense development.
Thoughts and practices will revitalize the mind of the reader. The energy in these lines will bring new thoughts and solutions. The reader will come to a new understanding of the world and themselves.
Vova Kosinskiy was born under the symbol of the Moscow Olympics in a Ukrainian provincial town of the USSR. “I endured the hardships of the economic crisis of the ’90s and poverty, surviving through small-scale trade and self-improvement. Books were my main friends and helpers. The turning point in my life came with the 2022 War in Ukraine. I decided to become a professional writer. Since a young age, I had questioned the universe’s workings, seeking answers in books, contemplating, and meditating. Over time, answers and knowledge began to come to me.”
Book details
Publisher : Joshua Tree Publishing (June 21, 2024)
A Novel Based on Her Life Story, and the Lifetime Battle She Endured with Mental Illness
The Book of Joann is a powerful story of darkness and light—defeat and victory —hope and faith. Joann, my mom, wanted her story to be told.
As her daughter, I promised her that one day I would share her story with the world, and people would finally understand the true meaning of what mental illness can do to not only the person who is struggling, but to a whole family and beyond. Our goal is to help people understand the reality of mental illness. Not only will this story educate others, but it will offer a voice for all who continue to struggle silently.
Lisa Zarcone is currently the Massachusetts National Ambassador for NAASCA (National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse). She is dedicated to spreading awareness for child safety/abuse and mental health illness/stigmas. She is committed to educating people and promoting change in a very flawed system as too many children continue to fall through the cracks. This is her passion, mission, and goal to break the silence.
Lisa was honored in the “2023 Women of Impact” by Business West Magazine.
Book details
Publisher : Joshua Tree Publishing (January 28, 2024)
Lisa Zarcone is currently the Massachusetts National Ambassador for NAASCA (National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse). She is dedicated to spreading awareness for child safety/abuse and mental health illness/stigmas. She is committed to educating people and promoting change in a very flawed system as too many children continue to fall through the cracks. This is her passion, mission, and goal to break the silence.
Lisa was honored in the “2023 Women of Impact” by Business West Magazine.
