JAM Podcasts & Audiobooks

Kim, Marie & Rich,  Dismas of Vermont provides therapeutic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconciling with the community. One of the main features of the Dismas model is our community dinners in which volunteers prepare and join us for dinner and story sharing. Burlington House Director, Kim Parsons, shares her experience with our community over the past 30 years along wi...

Kate & David, Hartford Dismas House Resident, David, joins host, Jeff Backus, and his step-mother, Kate, for a conversation about the shortcoming of the American mental health care system, how he found his way from Hawaii to jail in Vermont, and the benefit of the Dismas community. Dismas of Vermont provides therapeutic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconciling with the...

Samantha, Dale & Chico Former Hartford Dismas House Resident, Dale Jr., is given voice with Samantha and Chico of Junction Arts & Media - the Upper Valley non-profit that can be credited with giving so many a voice and producing podcasts such as "Going the Dismas"! This podcast is made possible by the guidance and technical support of JAM.

Seth & Celia, Former Hartford Dismas House resident, Seth, and volunteer, Celia, join Dismas of Vermont's Jeff Backus for a conversation and mini glimpse into what to expect at a community dinner. Dismas of Vermont provides theraputic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconciling with the community. One of the main features of the Dismas model is our community dinners i...

Jonathan & Lucas, Hartford Dismas House resident, Lucas, and Assistant Director of the Hartford Restorative Justice Center, Jonathan, join Dismas of Vermont's Jeff Backus for a conversation about the "big event", restorative practices, and congregate vs. scattered site housing. Dismas of Vermont provides therapeutic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconcilin...

Eric & Ray, Rutland Dismas House resident, Ray, shares his darkest moment before the dawn with Rutland Dismas House Director, Eric and Dismas of Vermont's Jeff Backus. Dismas of Vermont provides therapeutic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconciling with the community. One of the main features of the Dismas model is our community dinners in which volunteers prepare a...

Edgar & Jenn, Hartford Dismas House resident, Edgar, and Council Member, Jenn, join Dismas of Vermont's Jeff Backus for a conversation about life, COVID, house dynamics, food, and Edgar's birthday! Dismas of Vermont provides therapeutic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconciling with the community. One of the main features of the Dismas model is our community di...

 Justin, Michael & Tim, Three Hartford Dismas House residents recently released from jail, one that very morning,  share their experiences in the transitional process and the support that comes from each other. Dismas of Vermont provides therapeutic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconciling with the community. One of the main features of the Dismas model is our community...

Rita, Jim, and Richard, Dismas of Vermont Founder, Rita McCaffrey, gets together with Program Manager, Richard Gagne, and Executive Director, Jim Curran, to talk about the history and origins of Dismas and what's next! Dismas of Vermont provides therapeutic community to men and women leaving incarceration and reconciling with the community. One of the main features of the Dismas model is our...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  Our guest provides insight into their experience of moving to the Upper Valley from a more urban and suburban environment and what it’s like to integrate into Upper Valley schools, identifying how we function in multiple layers of bubbles that sometimes need to be burst. To share your story or quest...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  Our guest points out the challenges of access to community as a single parent, and as a proponent of environmental and food justice whose work in the trenches of identifying community members’ needs and meeting these through funding opportunities shapes their vision of the multiple layers and divers...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  Our guest shares their rich personal experience of community, of diversity, of inclusion and of exclusion in far off places including the Middle East and Africa, as well as in the United States, while pursuing a career as a member of the Air Force.  They describe how their curiosity has informed the...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  In our 14th episode, our guest shares what he has learned about being a Vermonter, after moving to the Upper Valley just before the pandemic, and provides insights into how he approaches building community through volunteering. To share your story or questions with co-creators Michelle and Julius, y...

Podcast #1: An overview of Senior Solutions and Aging Successfully in Vermont. Brought to you by Jim Collins and Joann Erenhouse for Senior Solutions the Council on Aging for Southeastern Vermont. Senior Solutions mission is to promote the well-being and dignity of older adults. Our vision includes providing access to services and programs that provides support to enable every person to age in the...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  In our 13th episode, our guest shares a positive experience of community anchored in a rich family tradition of openness and caring, in a place where kids answered the call of the street lights coming on as the signal to get back home, where elders sipped coffee and shared cake in fellowship.  They...

Jim Kenyon of the Valley News joined jamCAMP: Breaking News & Multimedia Journalism to share his expertise in the practices of responsible local journalism. July 2022

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  Our guest shares an experience of community informed by her early upbringing in Southern California, and the contrast with her experience here in the Upper Valley, where there is a huge difference in her sense of belonging.  Despite active efforts to get involved in local community, she has experien...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  Our 11th episode takes us into the experiences of community of a person who has deep, long term ties to the Upper Valley, having moved here as a teen, and now transitioning towards retirement in the near future.  Our guest shares his strong sense of self founded in family, in church and in theater,...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  In our 10th episode, our guest describes her youth in the Upper Valley, feeling a part of her hometown community in various local activities, like bake sales and bingo nights, and a grounding within her family. She explains how adult life, full of work, errands and obligation, has lessened her sense...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  In our ninth episode, our guest calls out the hypocrisy and disingenuousness  they have experienced in the Upper Valley, where they have felt both accepted and  recognized as a young, skilled athlete and then pushed aside, shunned as a visible individual, learning what it is to be alone and to strug...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.  Our 8th guest shares a vision of community that is rooted in compassion, empathy and caregiving, and describes arriving in the Upper Valley from a large family in a large city, learning a new pace and a sense of safety in the outside world, while struggling with full time work and finding affordable...

Welcome to Intersections , a platform for sharing our experience of community in the Upper Valley.   In our 7th episode, our guest relates their story of falling out of love with the Upper Valley: the ugliness they have uncovered behind the community's beautiful facade, the false lure of inclusion disappointed by the enduring reality of the harm being caused to black and brown bodies, here in...

In episode 4, Jess talks with Kate Rohdenburg, WISE Program director, Pat Glowa, WISE Board member, and Karen Tronsgard-Scott, Executive Director of Vermont Network Against Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. They reflect on the evolving ways of supporting survivors, intersections of WISE’s work with other Upper Valley institutions, justice and accountability, and their hopes for the future.

Peggy O'Neil, WISE Executive Director, opens the fifth episode as Jess interviews Angela Zhang, Jenny Williams, and Kate Harrison – all current board members. We learn what brings people to WISE, what it is like to support survivors on the crisis line, and how WISE touches every one of us.

In this final episode, Jess explores the impact of WISE’s prevention and education programming and how it inspires the next generation to create a more peaceful world and talks with WISE Executive Director Peggy O’Neil about her transformative years at WISE. Guests include Tori Nevel, Human Trafficking Specialist for New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Helen Rooker, North...