The Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office has partnered with a nonprofit that teaches carpentry skills to people in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Eleven people, several of them current and former inmates of the Barnstable County Jail, graduated from the program last week.
On one of the first warm days of the season at the Barnstable County Complex this spring, Sheriff Donna Buckley listed off the events that brought Vincent English to rock bottom.
His father died when he was a child. As a young adult, he lost his mother to brain cancer. Then in 2017, his little brother Michael died from a drug and alcohol addiction at 29 years old. English’s own addiction got worse in the years following, and by 2019, he was in the Barnstable County Jail.
In jail, he was served with divorce papers. He wasn’t allowed to see his children, and his house was headed for foreclosure.
“When he was released, his union, the Pipe Fitters Local 537, stood by him. They gave him his job back,” Buckley said. “He used that one foothold—a job with a living wage—to pay court costs, transportation expenses, rent, and a mortgage. Long story short, he got it all back, the house, his wife and his children.”
Now in recovery, English runs a nonprofit called the Michael English House, after his brother. The nonprofit has a job training program for people in recovery from addiction called Skilled Purpose.
The Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office provides classroom space for Skilled Purpose. Its instructors taught classes this year to two cohorts of students in recovery: one group living out in the community, and one group living at the county jail.
Rick Conway is one of the instructors and is also in recovery.
“We're teaching them basically the basics of carpentry, what different tools are, how to use them,” Conway said. “A little bit more than the normal person would understand.”
And it’s not just carpentry. Skilled Purpose aims to set its students up with connections for jobs and sends them on their way with a tool belt and some basic tools so they can get started working right away.
Graduate Nicholas Estrella of Hyannis was incarcerated when he started the 12-week program, but has since gotten out.
Estrella got a job the very first week he was out of jail. It’s not glamorous—he cleans out grease at restaurants—but it’s a job, and it’s keeping him on the path he wants to be on.
“No matter what choices you make in life, negative or positive, you can turn that around,” he said. “You just got to keep your mind on the right path, just stay around positive people, don't engage in negative activities and things seem to just fall into place.”
Another graduate, Brishnell Dawkins, originally from Jamaica and now living on Cape, had just been released from jail the day before.
“I'm free, so that's the most important thing—getting back to work and being with my family and just finding jobs,” he said. “This program has helped me to go venture for more jobs out there.”
Dawkins said he hoped Skilled Purpose would continue helping incarcerated people prepare to return to the outside world.
“Being incarcerated is all about what you want to learn. It's all in your mind,” he said. “You could just be there and just be a zombie, or you could pick up skills. It's just like, finding yourself and being able to see where you're wrong [and] see your mistakes.”
Another graduate—Tremaine Dillon of Brewster, originally from Georgia—was still incarcerated when I spoke to him at the graduation ceremony. He said his Skilled Purpose instructors introduced him to several different types of jobs that fall under the umbrella of carpentry, and helped him find an area that was right for him. He plans to use that knowledge to find a job when he gets out.
Asked what he wanted listeners and readers to know about his experience being incarcerated and going through a program like Skilled Purpose, Dillon said, “I want them to know that we're not all bad people, we are trying to get better, we are trying to do better in life and to just give us a chance.”
Second chances were the unofficial theme of the evening, and of English’s tearful address to the graduates.
“For you guys to have a chance to get out of jail and the depths of addiction and have a second chance…it hits me that deep to where I care about you guys' lives that much,” he said.
The next session of Skilled Purpose will begin in May.
