Veterans incarcerated at the Ada County Jail are getting a helping hand from an Idaho Red Cross volunteer thanks to a pilot program launched about a year ago.

Service to the Armed Forces volunteer Anita Jones, of Burley, is teaching these veterans resiliency skills, calming techniques and communications methods they can use to cope with the hardships of incarceration and can also turn to when they are released.

“Incarceration is a really stressful environment,” Anita said. “You can’t communicate with family members, you’re separated from many of your former supports and it’s an environment where you have very limited control over your living conditions and stressors like lights on 24/7 and noise all the time. There’s a huge need for them to have stress and anxiety reduction skills.”

Anita teaches the classes virtually, sometimes to three veterans at once and at other times to as many as 10. Anita said the stress-reducing techniques like meditation and deep breathing have been well received – so well received, the veterans are beginning to pass on what they’ve learned.

“Staff from Ada County facilities are reporting back that they’ve witnessed individuals who have taken the classes teaching the skills to other inmates,” she said.

Other facilities throughout the region also are considering giving the classes a try, Anita said.

Anita joined the Red Cross in the 1990s as an HIV/AIDS coordinator, where she worked with local health departments to make sure they had the resources and materials they needed.

Retired after a 14-year career as the family court services coordinator with the Idaho Supreme Court and now in private practice, Anita returned to the Red Cross several years ago as a disaster mental health volunteer. She eventually transitioned to the Service to the Armed Forces program.

“I was interested in the trauma and the difficulties I saw with returning military pre- and post-deployment and with their families,” she said. “I could see there was a real need for resiliency and skill-building and communications. Because the Red Cross offers that in a supportive environment with the military families it seemed like a good fit.”

And while her private practice keeps her plenty busy, Anita knows the volunteer work she’s doing with veterans going through tough times is extremely important.

“There’s such a huge need for mental health services, and I think ‘Gosh, I don’t know if I have time to volunteer and then I think if not me who?”  she said.

“It’s heartwarming when you see tough guys embracing these kinds of activities.”