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Videos & Talks

Covid 19 vs. Religious Services at the Virginia Department of Corrections

Jerry Fitz and Whitney Barton

When COVID-19 hit Virginia's prisons, religious services stopped. Jerry Fitz and Whitney Barton, working within the Virginia Department of Corrections, faced the question of how to sustain spiritual care and dialogue behind bars when in-person gathering became impossible.

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Jerry Fitz and Whitney Barton bring direct experience from the Virginia Department of Corrections, where the pandemic forced an abrupt halt to religious programming across facilities. Their work sits at the intersection of chaplaincy, rehabilitation, and institutional constraint, navigating what it means to maintain community and meaning-making when physical congregation is prohibited. In this participative webinar, cohosts Nancy Dixon and Linda Ellinor interview Fitz and Barton about how the Department responded, what was lost, what was improvised, and what the crisis revealed about the role of spiritual dialogue in correctional settings. Participants then reflect in small groups on the broader questions the conversation raises.

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Videos & Talks

Topics

Dialogue in prisons and justice settings

US corrections

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