Pastorgraphs: “Nursing Broken Souls”
Carmen
Warner-Robbins began her career as a registered nurse, tending broken
bones and bodies in the emergency room. She now tends broken souls as
she ministers to female inmates through Welcome Home Ministries,
which she founded in 1996. Her career includes being an acclaimed
nurse who initiated national programs in domestic violence, founded
teen-mother and rape-crisis programs, and created the first
certification course for Emergency Department nurses. Carmen served as
director of nurses at the San Diego chapter of the Red Cross. She
co-founded a medical textbook publishing company.
And
Carmen, a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary, is an ordained
United Methodist elder. She serves as Chaplain of the American Jail
Association, whose membership includes 3,100 jails with over 100,000
members.
It
was when she was serving Methodist congregations in the San Diego
Mid-City area (our neighborhood) that Rev. Warner-Robbins began
serving as Supervising Chaplain for women in the San Diego County
Women’s Detention Facilities (Las Colinas). “That’s when God began
calling me into this specialized ministry,” she recently said in my
office. Thank God she responded.
San
Diego County averages about 800 female incarcerations per month, or
over 10,000 per year. Sixty percent of them return to Las Colinas
multiple times. Local taxpayers fund these inmates at the rate of
$56,000 each per year.
Welcome
Home Ministries (WHM) has implemented a unique and effective program
in conjunction with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department that has
received national acclaim. Women who go through Welcome Home’s
“Future Achievers in Re-entry” (FAIR) peer mentorship program have a
10% recidivism rate. No other peer program in the nation has such
dramatic success. (More about FAIR in a later edition.)
“Women
previously trapped in a street life of drugs, abusive relationships
and prostitution now can find HOPE from a God-ordained pathway, ‘From
Cell to Celebration’” Carmen said.
Much
of WHM’s effectiveness is due to the fact the mentors were once peers
of incarcerated women. Rather than “preaching down” to them, the peer
mentors have “been there, done that”. They become living models of
how to break out of the revolving door at Las Colinas. Two of Carmen’s
previous clients are now her assistants. Donna Cleveland, whom I
wrote about in my Pastorgraph on May 7, 2012,
and Annie Beitler-Burchard, now assist Carmen from WHM’s Oceanside
office and their new San Diego office located here at Christ Ministry
Center.
Teri
Figueroa, North County Times Staff Writer, wrote: “A slight woman
with soft eyes and a megawatt smile, Warner-Robbins lights up any room
she enters, and yet makes each person in that room feel valuable. To
each of them, from the heads of national groups to drug-addicted
female inmates, she delivers the same nondenominational message: I
have faith in you. Her faith in God is ever-present, from gospel music
in her office to the large wooden cross hanging from the walls.”
At
an age when most of her clergy colleagues have retired, Carmen is
busier than ever. When asked about retirement, she replied, “I’m just
getting started!”
In Christ’s Service,
Bill Jenkins
From The Quote Garden:
“Being
a part of Welcome Home does not mean a free ride,” Warner-Robbins said.
“The women have to give back. They have to provide for their own and
the other women’s healthy futures. They do this by helping new members,
visiting those still in jail, speaking at community functions,
establishing liaisons with community colleges, organizing fund-raisers
and delivering food and clothing to Mexico’s poor.”
~ Rev. Carmen Warner-Robbins, AMN Healthcare, Inc. (2003).
Visit Welcome Home Ministries website.
Photo credits: Correctional Ministries and Chaplains Association (CMCA) and Welcome Home Ministries.
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