Commissioner's update for offenders and their families: October 3, 2023

World Teachers’ Day is on October 5. CSC’s teachers are there to support, encourage, and guide you in your academic journey.

Please take the opportunity to share your appreciation for them and the encouragement and knowledge they share with you. By showing your appreciation for teachers, you also acknowledge the significance that education has in your life. Learning and self-improvement are powerful tools for personal rehabilitation, and I encourage you to continue setting goals for yourself!

Mental Illness Awareness Week, from October 1 to 7, is an ideal time to have open and honest conversations about mental health and well-being. It is important to understand, learn, talk, and listen. I encourage you to speak with a member of our Health Services team about your own mental health. CSC psychiatrists, nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, and physicians are there to support you.

I am pleased that we are creating our third ethnocultural calendar. The 2024 calendar’s theme, Better Together, will showcase incarcerated individuals’ artwork and poetry on anti-racism/anti-discrimination, as it did for the 2022 and 2023 calendars. This is an opportunity for you to express yourself and have your message heard through artwork and poetry.

Let your social program officer or ethnocultural site coordinator know if you are interested in contributing. The deadline for submission is October 30.

Having an artistic outlet can be therapeutic as well as fun. You never know the talents you may have until you explore them.