Manual for Restorative Retelling in a Correctional Setting.

Source: (2001) Seattle, WA: Separation and Loss Services. Virginia Mason Medical Center.

This later intervention has been named Restorative Retelling (RR). After systematically screening to ensure their suitability for a short-term intervention, subjects attend group sessions for 10 consecutive weeks. The groups are closed and follow a written agenda that encourages specific accommodation to trauma and separation distress through clarification and group discussion, exercises for skill enhancement, restorative retelling of the dying through drawing and poetry and a reinforcement of resilience that can be continued after group termination. A separate manual has been published and is available upon request. RR has a low drop out rate (less than 20 %), is free of risk (there have been no casualties) and is associated with a significant lowering of standardized and reliable measures of distress (Rynearson – to be published).

For the past two years the authors have applied a modification of this intervention with incarcerated youth and adults. These preliminary clinical trials have been encouraging — inmates’ attendance is active and consistent (a drop out rate of only 10%), there have been no casualties from the intervention, and measures of distress show a significant decrease at the completion of the intervention (Rynearson et al – to be published).

This manual presents a theory and rationale for an intervention specific to the correctional setting, a specification of its active ingredients and a recommended format and content of sessions to serve as guide.
(Excerpt)